


HarperWong AU: Resident Evil 4 Reboot

by egg_rolls, key_lime_pie



Series: Resident Evil HarperWong Reboot [1]
Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-07 05:00:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 100,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7701754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/egg_rolls/pseuds/egg_rolls, https://archiveofourown.org/users/key_lime_pie/pseuds/key_lime_pie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternate universe where Helena is the US agent caught up in the events of RE4. F/F pairings, sort of: Ada constantly flusters Helena; Ashley develops a crush on Helena. Rated M for violence, gore, and also for the severity of Helena's injuries and Ada's penchant for sitting on her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pueblo, Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This fic is a fun, indulgent* project between friends. We were inspired by [spicyroll](http://spicyroll.tumblr.com)'s amazing HarperWong art to try our own hand at it. Originally, we had no intentions to post since the fic is a bit sloppy and probably inaccurate about certain things, but we figured we'd still like to share it with fellow Helena and/or HarperWong fans.
> 
> * Expect to see instances of wish fulfillment, subtle breaking of the fourth wall, and moments of self-awareness promptly lost in the next paragraph or scene. Examples: the merchant gag, Ashley's (girl) crush on Helena.

Helena Harper stared out of the dirty car window, making a mental map of the area as the local Spanish cop drove her and two other Secret Service agents to a village called Pueblo. Sitting up front with the driver was Jackson, recruited into the service young like her, though his impressive record didn't come with a giant asterisk. In the back with her, stuck as close to the other window as humanly possible, was Smith, a senior agent who on day one said to her face he opposed her hiring.

_"We need professionals, people who have worked and trained and deserve to be here, people who know what discipline means," he told her with a sneer. "I've seen your record, Harper. I've seen what your bosses have said about you. I don't care how good you are with a gun. I don't care how smart you are and how many cases you've solved on your own. To me, you're nothing but a CIA throwaway who can't keep her shit together when her slut sister gets what's coming to her."_

Helena barely kept from growling at the memory. Smith was goading her, but if Hunnigan hadn't been around, she would have punched his teeth in, damn the consequences at the time. She sighed. From the CIA's problem child to Ingrid Hunnigan's pet, she thought bitterly. It was certainly no way to thank the woman who had given her a job before the CIA had a chance to fire her.

Was this her punishment, she wondered, stuck in this dirty old van with Smith to chase a slim lead on the president's kidnapped daughter? She imagined Smith was stewing about being relegated to babysitting duty. Everyone knew they would turn up empty, that this was nothing more than a field trip for her and Jackson. What was strange was how Smith, a decorated agent better suited to work on the case with the likes of Leon Kennedy, wound up with them. Helena couldn't shake the feeling Hunnigan had something to do with it.

"Pueblo is just a ways past the bridge," she heard the driver tell Jackson in Spanish. She turned her eyes towards the windshield as the van made a turn and the bridge came into view.

Jackson let out a low whistle.

"You weren't kidding when you called it old," he remarked. "You sure that's going to hold us?"

"Yeah, man, don't worry about it," the driver said with a laugh. "That bridge is the only way to get in and outta this place. Used to have traffic back when the Salazar mine was up and running. Been a while, but it can hold one van."

"I read the mine was closed all of a sudden," Helena said, her Spanish as fluent as Jackson's, major factors that had put them both on this assignment. "It wasn't bankruptcy; the mine's profits were solid just days before it was shut down. Any word on Ramon Salazar since? He's left no paper trails since parting ways with his clients."

"Beats me, lady," the driver mumbled, shaking his head. "That kid's always been a weird one. You know, he pushed for the mine expansion and then, all of a sudden, he shut it down for no reason. Last I heard of him, he was getting some work done on that family castle of his."

"Wow, Harper," Jackson said, grinning playfully, "really did your homework, huh?"

"No more than you did," she responded nonchalantly, ignoring both Jackson's chuckle and Smith's scrutinizing glare.

Just past the bridge was a lone house, looking as neglected and unkempt as its front yard. As Helena mentally noted it as a landmark, she could have sworn she saw a man looking at them through one of the windows.

* * *

"Stop the car!" Helena barked at the driver when they drove by a small shack. "Stop the car!" she repeated, this time in Spanish.

"What the hell are you doing, Harper?" Smith demanded as he righted himself from the abrupt stop.

Helena didn't answer. Instead, she quickly exited the car and ran back to the shack. Jackson, Smith, and the driver followed. They found her prying open a bear trap that had caught a white wolf's hind leg.

"Harper, are you insane? Get back in the damn car!" Smith hollered, his face red in anger. "That thing's a wild animal! It's going to turn on us the second you set it free!"

"She will if you don't shut up and back off," she snarled, though she didn't bother to face him, her attention on the trapped wolf.

Smith made a strangled noise in his throat, his face contorting further. When he saw the wolf ease its leg free of the trap, he stepped back, pulling out his gun as Jackson and the driver followed suit, expecting the worst.

"If that thing attacks you, it'll be your own damn fault, Harper," he muttered, narrowing his eyes at both her and the wolf.

The wolf, however, simply looked at her. It blinked slowly then limped away, disappearing into the woods. With the animal gone, Smith stalked towards her, looking ready to burst.

"What the fuck kind of stunt was that, Harper?" he bellowed, yelling so loud he just might draw an entire pack of wolves to their location. "You just risked all our lives to save a wild animal. What the fuck are you trying to prove to me, that you're some kind of wolf whisperer now?"

"I had my weapon ready, sir," she answered as calmly as she could manage, her voice a low growl. "I understood the risk I was taking and I took it alone. I didn't ask for backup. If the wolf turned on me, I would have put her down myself, but I couldn't just sit there and not do anything, sir. She must have been out here for days without food and water, and either the locals haven't checked their traps or they left her to die."

"It's none of your Goddamn business is what it is, Harper," Smith hissed, becoming more furious when she didn't back down from his glare. "I'm putting this bullshit in the report! See how impressive you think you are, Harper. Now, get back in the car and stay there until we reach the village."

Without waiting for her response, Smith turned his back on her and stormed back into the van, viciously slamming the door. Jackson lagged behind, his expression a mix of disbelief and amazement.

"Going a bit too far to piss him off, Harper," he mumbled, sounding more amused than anything. "Didn't figure you for having a way with animals."

"I don't," she said, glancing at the direction the wolf went. _My father did,_ she added silently. "I just couldn't leave it like that."

"Now that, I pegged you for," he remarked, giving her a little smile.

"Heh," was all she could manage to say as thanks.

She and Jackson headed back to the van, both ignoring the dirty looks Smith sent their way. Their local cop escort wisely made no comment and resumed driving. Helena, turning her attention to actual concerns, made mental notes of their surroundings. Her eyes narrowed as they crossed another bridge, not missing the three men that hurried off upon seeing the van. They didn't look pleased to have visitors, she noted.

Just past the bridge and yet another shack that looked as unkempt and neglected as all the other structures she had seen, they came upon the village gate, though it was more like a thick metal barricade with a peculiar symbol on it. The driver excused himself and approached the gate, speaking loudly to the villagers inside.

"Why have you come here, stranger?" came the demand from the other side, nearly drowned out by a drone of angry, unintelligible snarls.

"This is the police, open the gate!" the driver shouted back.

The door slowly creaked open, just enough to reveal a man with a dirty face and filthier clothes. By the way the local cop cringed and failed to hold back a cough, the man must have smelled as bad as he looked.

"Americans," the man rumbled upon seeing them, his features twisted in disgust as he turned back to the local cop. "Be quick about your business. Your vehicle stays outside."

"What's he saying?" Smith snapped, not knowing a word of Spanish.

"He's letting us in, sir, but we're going on foot from here," Jackson said, already getting out of the car.

Before following, Helena decided to take with her her Hydra, a triple-barrel, sawed-off shotgun taken right out of the black market and authorized to only a few agents. She grabbed an entire pack of ammo, taking all the 10 gauge shells they brought with them. Smith gave her a disdainful, critical eye as she caught up with them, but he said nothing, the look on his face enough.

"Whoa, Harper, we're here to ask questions, not interrogate them," Jackson playfully teased. "Besides, you know this is a long shot. Anonymous tip catching a glimpse of a blonde girl? Pretty obscure."

"Yeah," Smith agreed with a grunt. "While Kennedy's out there tracking the kidnapper, we're here snuffing out weak leads. Let's get this over with. I want to go back to doing my real job."

Though Jackson joked, he, like her, came fully prepared, both of them equipped with an operations utility belt, cargo pants pockets filled with extra ammunition, and shoulder holsters for either extra weapons or a combat knife. As rookies, they were expected to take the mission seriously, despite it being just procedure. Smith, however, simply went with a suit and a single sidearm.

Placing her hydra on her hip holster, Helena watched as the villager pushed the heavy gate further with surprising ease, a feat that seemed impossible for a man his age and health. A line of villagers stood watching them as they entered, their pale, dirty faces blank of expression. With a mumble, each of them walked away, returning to their daily, mundane routine as though nothing had happened.

"That was weird," Jackson murmured, his hand going to his own sidearm.

Smith shrugged and proceeded to follow the man who had opened the gate, meaning to question him. Helena did a quick scan of the village, seeing two other paths leading out of it, both with the same metal gates. A tower was at the northeast, though she didn't see a bell at the top. Next to the tower was a small structure, the same peculiar symbol on its door. Villagers milled about, raking hay and tending to the cows that appeared more cared-for than the humans.

"Harper, where the hell do you think you're going?" Smith barked, seeing that she wasn't going with them.

"Questioning another local, sir," she said, her eyes already scanning the crowd. "The more people we speak with, the sooner we can leave." She turned to the local cop, asking in Spanish, "Would you accompany me?"

"Of course," he obliged, walking up to her.

Smith left with Jackson, no doubt muttering about her piss poor ability to work with a team. She silently agreed, having heard the same thing since her days as a detective. Since joining the service, Hunnigan often drilled into her head the value of building good relationships with the other agents, not the easiest task with the likes of Smith hovering in the workplace.

It didn't matter, she thought. She didn't need to make nice with Smith to question these locals.

Leading her escort, she knocked on the lone house to the east, past the barn with two cows. The door, unlocked, inched open. Helena shared a wary look with the Spanish cop and cautiously entered. The small house was empty and sparse of furniture, only having an old, worn cabinet and a dresser. The only other room had its door padlocked and knocking on it yielded no response.

Going back outside, Helena rounded the two houses to the west and found a woman feeding chickens. Helena let out an involuntary cough, the horrible smell starting to affect her. The house had smelled like rotten food and, if she were to be honest with herself, it also smelled like rotting flesh. Outside, it was barely better, filled with the stench of body odor and animal waste.

"Excuse me, ma'am," she said in Spanish, trying to get the woman's attention.

The woman glanced at her, then simply continued to feed the chickens.

"Ma'am, the lady wishes to speak with you," the Spanish cop said, gently grasping the woman's arm. "She just wants to ask you a few questions."

The woman stilled for a moment, but finally straightened to face them.

"What is it?" she hissed, her yellow teeth flashing, her voice high-pitched and raspy.

Helena pulled out a picture of the president's daughter and showed it to the woman.

"Have you seen this girl in the area?" she asked, watching the woman's face intently. "We received a call claiming a girl of this description was seen in your village a few days ago."

The woman eyed the picture with no interest, mumbling under her breath.

"What was that, ma'am?" the Spanish cop pressed, keeping his grip on her arm. "Please repeat what you said."

The woman slowly blinked her eyes, her free hand casually reaching behind her back.

"Watch out!" Helena shouted.

The cop started, releasing the woman's arm as he turned to stare at Helena in confusion. Everything happened in slow motion: she reached for her Picador while the woman rounded on the distracted cop, a knife in her hand.

Flicking the safety off, Helena aimed her sights at the woman.

"Stop! Put the kni-"

The woman's face remained blank as she plunged the knife into the cop's chest without a second's hesitation. He stared down in shock at the protruding handle, the woman's hand still wrapped around it, then made a horrible gurgling noise.

Helena fired. The woman barely stumbled back, her shoulder exploding in a shower of red and yellow. Helena didn't have time to wonder why there was yellow in the blood because the woman's hand was still holding the knife. She completely ignored Helena and her bullet wound to pull the knife out. The cop dropped to the ground, blood seeping around his wound to stain his uniform.

He wasn't going to make it. Helena sucked in her breath and kept her gun trained on the woman.

"Drop the knife!" she ordered. "I will shoot again! Drop the weapon now!".

The woman showed no signs of understanding the warning, despite Helena's fluent Spanish, her mangled shoulder freely bled a sickening mix of red and yellow. That was when Helena heard the unmistakable sound of rustling grass and footsteps surrounding her. Villagers steadily approached them, armed with pitchforks, sickles and machetes.

The woman said something guttural that Helena couldn't understand. Her pounding heart slowed as she assessed her situation with lightning speed. Nobody at the academy could beat her instincts and real-time analysis.

She was alone, surrounded, armed with a pistol and shotgun. She had enough ammo to probably get her out of the village on her own, but probably not enough to get to Smith and Jackson. Presumably, they had also been attacked or maybe dead already. The Spanish cop was a goner, no way around that. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his color going papery white and his chest moving only very slightly.

There was something seriously wrong with these villagers; she wouldn't be surprised if the rest of them had the same strange yellow coloration in their blood. The woman should have been screaming in pain from that shot, but there she was still standing and looking ready to launch another attack.

While Helena's mind raced, at the back of it was just the slightest feeling of triumph because it meant this lead was good. There was something going on here, and no matter what happened, she wasn't leaving until she found out what, provided she stay alive long enough to find out.

Her mind made up, she snapped off a shot into the woman's head.

Not waiting to inspect her marksmanship, she spun on her heel and bolted for an opening between two villagers. One swung his pitchfork wide while the other attempted to slash at her with a rusty machete. Their aim terrible, she managed to dodge them and headed back towards the village. She wasn't going to leave Smith and Jackson behind.

She was nearing the town square when she noticed how empty the village was. She surveyed the dilapidated houses for signs of movement, for someone lurking behind a shutter or doorway, but all she found were skinny chickens ambling about the dirt roads and ramshackle yards.

They were gathered somewhere and she had a bad feeling that Smith and Jackson might be the center of their attention. She cursed under her breath. The villagers who had surrounded her hadn't caught up yet, but she couldn't waste time looking through every house either. As she deliberated her next step, she heard a very loud whirring noise coming from the far corner of the square. She went rigid.

That whirring sounded very much like a chainsaw starting up.

Her blood ran cold, but she was already sprinting towards the source, praying that it wasn't what she thought it was.

* * *

She found the house where the noise was coming from. It looked equally decrepit as the rest of the village, but she at least knew where all the inhabitants went. They shuffled aimlessly around the house, their expressions disturbingly blank. She ducked into a small shack behind the neighboring house and cursed when a bloodcurdling scream mixed with the whirring noise.

That definitely was a chainsaw and that scream sounded too similar to Smith. The chainsaw kept going long after the scream had died, which meant that Jackson was next if he wasn't already dead.

Taking a quick look to make sure the coast was clear, she ran to the neighboring house and shoved a window open. She hustled in, making quick sweeps of the rooms, but it was blessedly empty. She bolted up the stairs to the second floor and ran into a bedroom with a window facing the house where she heard the chainsaw. She could see a few villagers wandering in the space between the two houses and swore again.

If she couldn't move fast enough, Jackson was going to die.

Grateful that she wasn't afraid of heights, she braced a boot on the window sill and carefully stood, angling her shoulders out of the window and grabbed the upper frame. She glanced down to make sure they hadn't noticed her, then surveyed the outside of the house above the window she was perched on. She could see the frame of the roof exposed, the shingles falling apart from neglect and erosion.

Not having the luxury of time to think about it, she bent her knees and jumped.

Splinters bit into her fingers and the frame made an alarming groaning sound, but it held. Another glance down showed the villagers still standing about cluelessly, so she carefully pulled herself up.

Now, she had a jump of ten feet to make it to the next rooftop. With a running lead, Helena could land it easily enough, and she judged the structure adequately secured. Backing up a few steps, she took a running leap.

Helena landed somewhat ungracefully on a knee, somersaulted over her back, and nearly sailed off the other end of the roof, but instinct had her reaching out and bracing her feet in the midst of sliding to stop herself. Her knee throbbed, but she made it.

There was a ladder propped up against the side of the house, so she climbed down to an open window and clambered inside.

The first thing she noticed was the smell. Granted, the entire village smelled like many things had died and rotted, but this smell… it was the scent of fresh death. Her stomach churned, because while she wasn't foreign to blood and death, her sensitive sense of smell had yet to acclimate.

She went to the open doorway and strained to listen for any sounds of life. There was loud shuffling and grunting coming from the lower level, like someone was moving furniture around. Helena crept down the stairs, her gun out and ready. She couldn't see anyone immediately, but checked what appeared to be an open living room and an adjoining study, all empty aside from rickety and dusty furniture. There were dark smears and stains on the wooden floors. She put them to the back of her mind and pressed her back against the wall by the opening to the kitchen.

There was some kind of fire coming from the kitchen; she could hear the pop and crackle of it as someone moved around, throwing shadows into the opposite wall. She peeked around the corner.

A large man was standing at a table, his back to her. He raised his arm and she could see a large cleaver in his hand. It looked like he was cutting something, something that looked like a leg. A human leg.

Helena clenched her jaw. She couldn't see Jackson anywhere. Raising her gun, she aimed at the butcher's head, but was momentarily taken off guard when she noticed his head was covered in a burlap sack.

The butcher stood up straight. Helena's finger twitched on the trigger. At this range, it would be a clean headshot, sack or no. She didn't think reason or warnings would work on any of these people, but she didn't have a silencer, and the villagers would hear the gunshot. She had gotten away last time, but she didn't think she'd be so lucky if she was trapped in a house with limited ammo and no way out.

As though he heard her thoughts, the butcher put his cleaver down, tossed the leg aside, and shuffled through a door to outside.

Helena stared. She waited a few seconds.

Trying not to overthink this random bout of luck, she swiftly entered the kitchen and held her breath to keep from catching the scent of fresh, chopped limbs in the corner. She quickly scanned the room and found an alcove: propped inside that alcove was Smith.

"Smith!" she whispered, eyes wide.

She ran to him, her hand automatically going to his pulse. He still felt warm. He seemed unharmed until she pulled up for a closer look at his torso and saw the deep gouge that ran from his shoulder diagonally down nearly to his opposite hip. The flesh was torn and ragged and the wound black from how much blood there was.

She pulled her hand away. The butcher had taken a chainsaw to him. Smith was dead.

She hadn't liked him in the least and he'd definitely been a certified asshole to her, but he didn't deserve this. She searched the room again, but couldn't find any signs of Jackson. The body parts in the corner were too decomposed to be his.

Helena had to decide where to go from here. She had no idea where Jackson could be and she couldn't keep dodging villagers this way: she was going to be found one way or another. She returned to Smith's body and carefully went through his pockets, soon finding reassuring weight of his gun still in its holster, right along with a spare magazine. She tucked his gun against the small of her back under her belt and fished out his wallet and service badge.

She couldn't help him, but she was going to make sure she had something to bring back to his family. She tucked it away into a spare pocket, then heard the heavy tread of large footfalls just outside the door again. In her momentary distraction, she hadn't been listening close enough to the outside. The door opened just as she turned towards it.

The huge lumberjack stopped short just beyond the threshold. Helena couldn't be sure if he noticed her or not because of the sack on his head, but his aggressive reaching to crank the chainsaw might as well have confirmed it. Helena leveled her Hydra and shot him.

He didn't budge. A dark stain spread across his broad chest, but he simply yanked again, and the chainsaw started. She steadied her grip, braced her stance, and fired two more rounds. The butcher shrugged them off like he did the first one, raised the chainsaw over his head and walked towards her.

He swung. Helena dodged past him and bolted to the open door. Villagers were looking at the house and some even spotted her. They pointed, picked up their weapons, and slowly began to swarm.

Adrenaline drummed through her system. She could clearly hear the man with the chainsaw barreling his way behind her while dozens of crazed villagers clumsily gathered around the house. She made a split decision and slammed the door shut, figuring a single butcher was better than a whole village of them. Helena rammed a chair under the door and faced the butcher once again.

He swung wildly again, but his movements were slow and clumsy. Helena easily evaded as he buried the chainsaw into the wall. She pulled some bullets from her belt, snapped open her Hydra, and reloaded quickly. He yanked the chainsaw out just as she aimed a blast into the back of his knee that nearly blew his leg clean off.

He grunted and let go of the chainsaw. She carefully kicked it away and blasted him in the face again with her Hydra.

Amazingly, he managed to stay on his feet and even lunged for her. He caught her left arm and she grappled with him. It was like five shotgun rounds had been nothing to him.

She kicked him in the gut and heard something crack, but he didn't even flinch. With a jerk, she managed to free her gun arm and aimed her Hydra square in his face, squeezing the trigger point blank.

His body was thrown into the wall from the blast. This time, when he hit it, he slid down to the floor limply. Outside the door, the villagers pounded on the wood and windows. The sound of breaking glass had her head swiveling to see a man breaking through a window to crawl in. She didn't waste a second; turning her back on the butcher, she ran up the stairs to the second floor landing.

Halfway up the stairs, she heard the door slam open. At the top of the stairs, she saw one villager glare up at her. Helena heaved a bookcase down the stairs and shut herself in the room she'd entered from.

Instincts more than anything kicking in, Helena hurried to the window, latched onto the ladder, and climbed back up.

She'd just cleared the roof when she looked over her shoulder and saw a head poke out the window and another villager on the ground pointing up at her and alerting the others.

She grabbed the ladder to pull it up, but whoever was at the window pulled back with startling strength that almost yanked her from the roof. Another villager latched on. At a disadvantage from above, Helena pulled free her Picador and shot both of them. She pulled up the ladder after firing a few rounds and laid it safely out of reach on the roof.

Now, she was stuck on a roof and would need to get to another roof again. She could hear more villagers gathering below and even saw a few carrying spare ladders.

Helena shook her head and readied to jump back to the original roof she had been on, but that option was cut quickly. Looking across the way to it, the other house wasn't empty. There were more villagers inside it and they had burning torches with them.

When a ladder was placed against the roof edge, Helena kicked it over, sending a couple of villagers down with it, but as soon as one of those torches landed, she'd be done for. The villagers were already lighting up a pile in the middle of town, and even at this distance, Helena made out Jackson's familiar mission gear in the middle of the pyre.

Helena didn't have time to think about it. She reached for her utility belt and snapped off a grenade. It was a bad route: she only had two, and it clearly wasn't enough to wipe out the whole village, but if she could blow open a big enough path, she knew she could outrun them.

Just as she was about to pull the pin and drop the first grenade, a bell tolled. The villagers all froze and looked towards the sky, as though it was where the sound came from. The bell continued to ring. The villagers dropped everything: pitchforks and scythes, machetes and hoes, their torches, too, and headed towards the tower with the peculiar symbol on its door.

Helena swore quietly, spotting one torch roll abruptly close to the corner of the wooden house. She hurriedly lowered the ladder, again not questioning the great stroke of luck, then quickly descended once the villagers were out of sight. She kicked the torch away from the house to keep it from going up in a full blaze, then looked after the door where the villagers had disappeared.

She didn't know what was going on, but she was going to find out.

* * *

With the last of the villagers gone and the immediate threat removed, Helena made her way back into the house with her gun drawn, and sure enough, she found the butcher still slumped on the floor against the wall. Helena approached him cautiously, not trusting anything in this village to follow the normal rules anymore, not when its people shrugged off bullet wounds like they were nothing and displayed strength that rivaled her own.

A huge, bloody and yellow-speckled mess, the man remained still, but Helena refused to let her guard down. She moved around his feet slowly and kicked a leg. It budged as a dead limb would. She kicked again, harder and higher near the hip this time. His head slumped off his shoulder and he fell forward like a ragdoll, something rolling off his person. Helena glanced at it and saw a large bloodred stone. She switched her eyes back to the corpse and, still holding her gun up, inched towards the stone.

She grabbed it quickly, realizing it was a ruby almost the full size of her fist. She pocketed it without too much thought given and finally made her exit. Everything around her lay still and unmoving, save for the soft flicker of the fire dwindling around the body pit.

It wasn't too big yet, not really catching on the flesh or logs very well without tending, which allowed Helena to bend over Jackson's body and search him. She removed some useable ammunition, but the villagers had taken his gun, grenades, and utility belt. It seemed they had the sense to do that.

A name stuck to her as she rifled through Jackson's remaining belongings, spoken reverently by one of the men as he ambled his way to the door. Lord Saddler, the man had said.

Helena didn't know the name by anything she had read before coming here, but she kept the name at the back of her mind in case she came across it again.

She made her way to the south gate where she had come in, thinking it the safest place to call back to base and report in, but the gate was down and lined by barbed wire at the top. Seeing that it was impossible to climb, she doubled back to the village. She found the gate to the east also blocked, but the one north was open. Before heading out, she climbed to the top of the tower; it would make a great vantage point in case more villagers showed up. Figuring it was the safest she was going to be, she took out her handheld and finally answered the call she had been getting since the fight broke out.

Hunnigan's worried face appeared on the screen.

"Helena, there you are!" the older woman exclaimed, looking much like someone who just found her runaway puppy. "I've been trying to contact the three of you for the past half hour. Did something happen? Wh- oh, my God, what happened to you?"

She imagined she didn't look well with her face covered in dirt, sweat, and blood, but not one drop was hers.

"Hunnigan," she breathed, a small sense of relief filling her at the familiar sight of her handler. "Smith and Jackson are dead. A woman attacked me after I asked about the president's daughter, and the rest of the villagers went after them. There was a man with a chainsaw; he killed Smith. And the others, they burned Jackson in a pyre. Hunnigan, these people are acting weird, not like zombies but it's like they're possessed or under some kind of spell. I think they're infected, there's some kind of yellow substance in their blood."

"Infected? Are you safe, Helena?" Hunnigan asked anxiously.

"For now," she said, though she did look out the tower's windows to double check. "They would have gotten me, too, but some church bell - I don't know where it was coming from - it started ringing and they all just left. One of them said a name. Saddler."

"I'll see what I can find, Helena. You need to get out of there now. I'm going to send an extraction team for you."

"Hunnigan, I think the president's daughter is here," Helena said, ignoring the fretful expression on Hunnigan's face. "I'm going to look into it."

"Not without backup, you're not. Helena, the rest of your team is dead and you may be dealing with BOWs. Your priority is to head to the extraction point. Look for a tower-"

"I don't want to lose this lead, Hunnigan. If the president's daughter is here, I'm not leaving her behind."

With that, she cut the connection along with Hunnigan's protest. She surveyed the area one last time before climbing down the ladder. She checked the door with the symbol, not surprised to find it locked. Using her handheld, she took a picture of the symbol and sent it to Hunnigan, asking her to look it up, despite knowing a stern lecture was coming.

She wiped her face clean with the sleeve of her jacket, then checked to make sure both of her weapons were loaded. Searching Smith and Jackson's packs had doubled her handgun ammo, added two hand grenades, an incendiary, and an extra sidearm, but neither of them had any shotgun shells, leaving her with 44.

Picador in hand, Helena headed out the north gate, hoping she wouldn't run into another man with a chainsaw.

* * *

The singular path lead to a farm, the people there going about their chores like the villagers had been. Helena ducked into the nearest shack where she could see two men at the barn just ahead of her and another man raking hay outside the the other barn to her right.

They were fairly spread out, she noted, reaching for the combat knife on her holster. There was a good chance she could get through the farm without using a single bullet. These weren't innocent, helpless civilians, she told herself. These farmers had the same empty, trance-like looks she had seen on the villagers. There would be no reasoning with them.

After making quick and quiet work of the farmers, Helena took the east door, as the west door was locked from the other side and was far too tall to scale without equipment.

Outside led to downward path along the mountainside. The first thing she noticed was a peculiar signpost. She remembered that she had seen it twice before: the first in the area where she had helped the wolf and second right after she exited the village. All three signposts were unreadable, but the human skulls adorning this one was telling enough.

Slowly, she began to make her way down the path, and put the knife away to switch back to her prefered Picador. After a few more steps, she heard a rustle from above and huge rocks dropped behind her, barely missing her. Another large boulder fell towards her.

Helena rolled forward to avoid the impact, then scrambled back to her feet and sprinted ahead, outrunning the rolling boulder as best she could. The moment the path opened up wide enough, she leapt out of the way, safely avoiding it when the boulder smashed into the side of the mountain.

Breathing hard, she trained her gun at the path and waited to see if anyone would come rushing down to attack her. She wouldn't put it past these people to jump from that high up and survive after what she'd seen earlier. When nothing turned up, Helena checked out her newest surroundings to see what was ahead of her. A short tunnel, it seemed, that lead to another open area with two houses.

Unlike the last two areas, this one seemed unoccupied by the locals. Still, she advanced carefully, taking slow, short steps. There were no other exits besides the one behind her. This place made the perfect trap. A faint flash of light caught her eye, revealing a sloppily planted tripwire on a shack's entrance. Inside the shack, she saw, were three bear traps.

The house closest to her was heavily rigged, but empty. She made it to the next house, easily missing the bear traps and trip wires haphazardly placed around it. She entered through the window, thinking the door was boobytrapped and she was right.

Once inside, she heard a faint, muffled noise that seemed to be coming from a few rooms away. She followed the sound, easily ducking under the tripwires on every doorway until she came upon the last room in the house. The noise came a wardrobe that had been shoved to the very corner of the room, the frantic struggling from inside making it shake, but not enough to force the lock open.

Sensing a possible ally, but still guarded, Helena leaned against one of the doors, putting herself in a safe, advantageous position. With a simple flick of her wrist, she popped the lock, sending a body crashing to the ground and wriggling frantically like a fish out of water. She turned the man on his back using her foot, her Picador aimed at his head.

The man, his mouth taped, shook his head wildly, his panicked pleas muffled.

Deeming he wasn't a threat like the villagers, Helena unceremoniously yanked the tape off his mouth, making him squeak in pain.

"Like it rough, don't you, senorita?" he drawled, amazingly going from utterly terrified to shamelessly flirting in an instant.

Helena rolled her eyes and nudged him back on his stomach, ignoring his further protests about her rough handling.

"You are not like them, I hope," he said conversationally as she undid the bounds on his hands. "What a shame that would be."

"I'm not," she answered gruffly, seriously considering slapping the tape back on him. "Who are you? Why haven't they killed you?"

Freed, the man sat up, rubbing his sore wrists.

"Now I could really use a smoke," he drawled lewdly, waggling his eyebrows at her. "You wouldn't happen to have a cigarette, would you, senorita?"

"Answer the damn questions or I'm throwing you back in the wardrobe," she growled, her patience already gone, "and I'll light it on fire."

The threat, while delivered with convincing intimidation, was immediately forgotten when they heard footfalls outside the room. It was too close for them to hide, so Helena leveled her Picador at the doorway instead.

The door slapped open and a giant stepped inside. Helena fired immediately upon seeing him. The man, at least eight feet tall, wore a trench coat and had a beard that reached his chest. The giant shrugged off her bullets just as easily as the man with the chainsaw had, drew a hand back, and hit her hard enough to have her vision go briefly gray, then black.

* * *

Slipping in and out of consciousness, Helena could hear a man speaking to her, her hazy mind unable to make out his words, only that his deep voice trailed off into a laugh.

When she finally came to, she was in different room, her hands tied behind her back, her back to another person, his hands also tied and bound to hers. Looking over her shoulder, she saw enough to recognize the man she had found in the wardrobe earlier, his lolling head indicating he was still blacked out.

"Hey," she grunted, bumping the man with her shoulder, then elbowing him roughly when he wouldn't wake up.

"Oww," the man groaned in protest, effectively woken up by the jab. "Senorita, I must say, you really know how to hurt a man."

"Drop the act," she snapped, giving him another complementary elbow. "What the hell is going on here? What do you know and why are they keeping you alive?"

The man chuckled in that infuriatingly calm way of his.

"Easy, easy, senorita. How about we start with names, no?"

Helena tensed, her temper flaring.

"We don't have time for your bullshit."

Again, the man just laughed.

"Given our current predicament, senorita, I believe we do indeed have time for this. Now, your name? And what is a woman like you doing in a place like this, hm?"

He was wrong; she was already working on cutting through the ropes, but this seemed like the best chance to get him talking.

"My name's Helena Harper," she bit out. "I'm looking for a girl who went missing."

"An American girl?" the man asked, something cautious in his tone.

"Yes."

"Ah. Helena Harper, hm? It wouldn't be Agent Harper, would it?" he said, sounding nonchalant. "Because, now that you mention it, I did hear the locals saying something about a president's daughter in the church. I'll give you a map of the area if they haven't taken it as well."

"Now you're helping me," Helena mumbled, suspicious. "What's in it for you? Who are you?"

"My name is Luis Sera, senorita, and helping a woman in need is reward enough for me, especially one as beautiful as you."

"Bullshit."

"Now that is not true, you are very attractive. I know most men must find you very intimidating, but-"

"Stop. Talking."

"Ah. Women, then? Love is love, I say. But, yes," he said, thankfully done with the teasing. "I find it very strange they only sent one agent to look for the president's daughter."

Helena stilled, her anger seeming to melt away.

"I'm the only one left."

"I see," Sera murmured. "I'm sorry to hear that, Agent Harper. Do you have help coming?"

"I'm going to the church," she said, avoiding the question.

"I see," Sera said again, speaking softly. "Then I wish you the best and hope you bring this girl home. It will be dangerous. The locals here... they're very displeased with visitors. They'll stop at nothing to keep you from reaching the girl."

"What's wrong with them? They're acting like zombies, almost."

"Almost? You do not think they are zombies?"

"No. Shooting them in the head doesn't neutralize them, and they were acting normal before they attacked me and my team. It was like something triggered them."

"You seem to have read up on the Raccoon City Incident, Agent Harper," he remarked, though he didn't sound surprised.

"That's classified information," she muttered darkly, her eyes narrowing. "How do you know about it?"

"I assure you, Agent Harper, I am a lot smarter than I look."

"Yeah, I thought as m-" Helena started to say, but she was cut off by the sound of metal scraping against the floor and heavy footfalls heading their way.

The door burst open, revealing a large man armed with an axe, his features contorting into a sneer when he saw them. He stepped forward with one foot, his other foot broken, grotesquely twisted, but he was unhindered as he lunged, easily lifting the heavy axe over his head and swinging it at them.

Helena didn't have time to think. She acted. Bracing her feet against the wall closest to her, she kicked hard, propelling herself against Sera's back and just barely avoided the axe, the blade burying just a few inches below her knees where the rest of her would have been.

"Madre de Dios!" Sera yelped, eyes wide as saucers.

"Shut up and move! Move right now!" Helena yelled, yanking the last of the bindings off her wrists. She dragged Sera to his feet, ragged bits of rope falling to the floor. "Go!"

The man roared in outrage, picked up his axe, and chased them out of the room. Helena and Sera fled down a corridor. A horrible crunch followed, the sound of the man dragging that heavy, broken foot after them.

Sera was no match for her pace, even if it was his life on the line. His breathing was becoming more ragged, and his steps, sloppy. She saw a few stacked shelves up ahead and grabbed Sera's arm, pulling him ahead of her. She quickly yanked the shelves over and heard their pursuer stumble and trip.

"Did we lose him?" Sera asked breathlessly, face pale and slick with sweat.

"No, keep running. We need to separate," Helena said. "You're slowing me down."

Sera chuckled in spite of himself.

"You do not mince the harsh words, Agent Harper. You have a plan, I presume?"

"Yeah, hide in here," she said, and opened a door that was meant for a closet. She stuffed him inside. "Stay here. Do not move from this spot or I will hunt you down and kill you myself." She shut the door in his face.

The heavy drag of the axe broke wooden floors, the man had caught up. He rounded the corner, surprisingly fast for such a heavy man with a broken ankle. Helena had just left him down that long hall there.

She didn't wait for him to get closer. She took aim at his bulky mass and fired four repeated shots into his chest. The man didn't even flinch, and he was still coming. Helena only had two shots left. As much as she trusted her strength, she wasn't about to the test against the harried man who couldn't even feel pain. She backed up a step, took careful aim at his head, and fired again.

The man didn't even stumble back with a bullet in his head. Helena turned around and ran to add distance between them. This trashy sidearm wasn't going to do the trick. Figures Smith would bring a useless gun on a mission, she thought. If only she had her Hydra.

Helena holstered the piece as she dashed, thinking up a new plan. No Hydra, No Picador, but she had grenades.

Whatever building they were in, it was small on this side because Helena hit a dead end fast. She stopped and turned, panting slightly. She was used to running far longer distances, but it had been many hours since she had any food or rest and her face still throbbed from the blow that knocked her out.

The big man moved slow, but he was too close for the grenade, and Helena couldn't be sure the blast wouldn't catch Sera in the closet just down the way. She had to lure the man into the dead end corner she was in to catch him, easier said than done when facing a maniac three times the size of her person.

He lurched for her, heavy axe swinging high to chop her in half. Helena let her instincts take over, but when the axe didn't fall at all, her eyes caught on the sharp edge half cleaved into the ceiling. The man was too tall, he swung too high with the axe.

Helena took her heaven-sent moment and slid right past him. It only took him one more yank to pull his weapon down, but it was one yank too long. Helena unclipped a grenade from her belt, pulled the pin, and rolled it right under his legs. She dived the opposite way for cover, arms covering her head.

Heat and force flared at her back when the grenade went off. Her ears ringing slightly, she peered over her shoulder. The man had been reduced to an unrecognizable pile of flesh and limbs, only his axe remaining intact.

A loud cry from outside caught her attention, making her scramble to her feet to peek through the small window in the room. From what she could see, it looked like she and Sera had been taken to a quarry, and the explosion had drawn the workers to them.

She cursed and doubled back for Sera; they had to go before the building got surrounded. She forcefully yanked the closet door open, finding not Sera, but a map like he had promised.

Cursing again, she snatched up the map and hurried out.

* * *

Safely out of the quarry, Helena finally got the chance to get her bearings. They had taken her jacket, her Picador, her Hydra and the extra grenades she got from Jackson, but that was about as thorough as they got. She still had her utility belt, some of its contents still accounted for, her cargo pants pockets hadn't been searched at all and she still had the sidearm she got from Smith.

Sloppy work, she thought, retrieving her handheld and contacting Hunnigan.

"Helena, oh, thank God," a relieved-looking Hunnigan said, but the look was gone in a flash, in its place a woman scorned. "Let me make this clear, Agent Harper," she said in a low, threatening voice, "do not, and I mean, do not, hang up on me again. Now, I've sent a team to your location and you will rendezvous with them when they arrive."

Helena blinked, caught in that terrifying glare.

"Okay," she eventually obliged, her voice coming out like a strangled squeak.

"Good. Now, give me an update. Are you okay?" Hunnigan asked, instantly back to that concerned, worried tone. "Did you find anything?"

"Look up Luis Sera, he was being held captive by the locals," she said, foregoing answering the first question. "He told me he heard the villagers talking about the president's daughter in the church, but he ran off before I got any more information out of him. He's involved in this, Hunnigan, there's a reason they haven't killed him yet."

"Do you think he was telling the truth about the church?"

Helena didn't answer immediately. Sera left a map for her, easily her biggest lead or an obvious trap she'd be willingly walking into.

"It's worth checking out," she decided, then awkwardly adding, "I'll try to be careful."

Hunnigan sighed.

"Alright. I'm still gathering intel on Saddler and that insignia you sent me. I'll contact you if I find anything."

"Got it."

"And Helena-"

"I'll pick up when I can. I promise."

"Good. Take care of yourself."

Mumbling another promise, Helena pocketed her handheld and leaned heavily against a wall. She absently rubbed her neck and frowned, feeling like there was something off. She shook her head. It was probably nothing, she told herself, leaving it at that as she unfolded the map Sera had left with her.

Scribbled messily next to a shakily drawn X read the words, _"You are here, senorita. There is a secret passage in the village that will take you to the church. The key to the door is with the Big Cheese, the village chief."_

Big Cheese, she repeated in her head. Then she groaned, realizing it was likely no other than the hulking giant who had knocked them both out in a single hit. She scanned the map, effortlessly picturing in her mind the areas she had already been in. From here, she had to go through the warehouse up ahead to reach the village's east gate. Just before the gate, she noted, was the village chief's house, Sera helpfully marking it with a drawing of a cheese wedge.

Between running for his life and running from her, she didn't know how the man found the time and the humor to do that.

Folding the map and putting it away, Helena headed for the warehouse doors.

* * *

Fighting her way through the warehouse, Helena went into the basement and found a ladder leading to the other side. Quickly reloading her sidearm, she climbed the ladder and saw the village chief's house just ahead, no visible guards or patrols about. She easily got through the tripwire and the bear traps laid out and entered the back of the house through a stairway that brought her to the second floor.

Between her and the next room was a door with engravings around what appeared to be a crystal ball, a symbol suspended in its center.

She gave the door a push but it didn't budge, and she couldn't see any locks or a doorknob. Turning her attention back to the crystal ball, she recognized the same insignia she had seen in the village. Tentatively, she touched the crystal ball.

 _Huh,_ it rotates, she noted, moving it upwards further. _Wonder if this will work._

She turned the ball sideways, matching the symbol inside with the ones engraved on the door. A sound went off, like a mechanism being activated, and the door slid open, revealing a bedroom.

Thinking Pueblo and its people stranger and stranger, Helena stepped into the room with her sidearm out. On a table she found an elaborate case with a key inside, its bow shaped like the insignia. She took the key, then went on to check the wardrobe on a hunch, her face lighting up when she saw her stolen equipment.

_My Hydra!_

She grabbed the shotgun, putting it where it belongs on her hip holster, then her Picador, happily switching out of Smith's sidearm. She took everything else, including more handgun ammo than she could remember and a Red9 handgun, figuring it to be Sera's.

On the desk by the window, she found a handwritten note.

_As instructed by Lord Saddler, I have the agent in confinement, alive. Why keep her alive?! I do not fully understand what the lord's intentions are. I would however think he'd keep them separate. Not confine them together as has been ordered. I do not believe Luis will trust a stranger but by chance they did cooperate the situation could get a bit more complicated._

Her eyes narrowed. These people knew Sera.

_If for some reason, an unknown third party is involved, I don't think they'd let a chance like this slip by. But maybe it's all Lord Saddler's ploy. Leaving us vulnerable so this third party will surface, if they even exist that is..._

_It is an unlikely possibility, but if a prowler is already amongst us then our plans could be ruined. I guess the lord thinks it's worth the risk, if we're able to stop whatever conspiracy is at work. At any rate it's the lord's call, we will trust his judgement as always._

Helena finished reading, wondering, _a third party? There's someone else here?_

She sent pictures of the letter to Hunnigan and took the letter itself, thinking what good fortune it was that the village chief just left evidence out in the open.

Hearing voices downstairs, Helena pulled out her Picador. She'd only taken a few steps into the hall, hearing a man cackling from downstairs when the slightest creak of a floorboard had her whipping around- too late.

A fist like a solid block of stone struck her cheek. She went flying, her back crashing into the old, dry rot wooden wall and broke in. Her back hit the ground of the room she'd just been in, her cheek throbbed, and her Picador lay across the room.

Helena reached for her sidearm as a massive hand clamped around her throat and lifted her clean off the ground. Vision already fuzzy, she started to choke. She tried to raise her sidearm blindly, but a second fist wrapped around her whole wrist and squeezed. Already weak, it fell from her fingers without much of a fight.

"Lord Saddler may not see you as a threat," her assailant said, the village chief. He glared at her with one eye, the other an unresponsive replacement. Helena barely registered him talking. She reached for his fingers, trying to loosen them in vain. She gasped for air, but couldn't draw it, black spots speckling her vision. "But we have more than enough numbers. We have no need for you, American. You die now!"

He tightened his grip around her neck as if to snap it. Helena gagged for a breath as black covered over her eyes. She could barely even feel his hands, a cold sensation seeping through her limbs. She wasn't even panicking anymore. She was going to die.

Who would take care of Deborah? She tried to kick, but the effort was so weak, even she knew it was useless. He was too strong now, she wasn't going to make it. She hoped Hunnigan would be the one to tell Deborah. She hoped she'd take care of her, too. _Deborah…_ it wasn't supposed to be like this.

Seemingly far off, two distant shots rang off.

And suddenly, the pressure was gone. Helena almost hadn't heard it. Dropped to the ground, she collapsed like a ragdoll, weak limbs unable to support her at all. She gasped, then gagged on the intake as air rushed to fill her aching lungs. She coughed, sputtered, and struggled to move. Her darkened vision vaguely caught a flash of red at the window before the village chief crashed through it. The shower of glass shards hardly registered, either. She could barely hear a thing.

Choking on the new rush of air, her eyes fuzzed over. She blindly reached for her sidearm and felt it next to her on the floor. She gripped and raised it with weak arms, leveling the weapon in front of her as she coughed and choked more.

It took a good few seconds to realize she wasn't going to be attacked again, more to recall her assailant had flown out the window. Were there shots, too? And the flash of red outside, what was it?

Helena weakly lowered her sidearm to the floor. She only realized then that it wasn't cocked and wouldn't have protected her anyway. She dropped back to the floor and took in more air, slower this time. She closed her eyes a long moment, and when she opened them again, the fuzziness and black spots weren't there.

Still recovering with her heart racing a mile a minute, she dragged herself up to her knees and crawled over to her Picador. She safely holstered the sidearm and pulled her Picador back to her. It wasn't damaged; thank God.

Weakly, she made her way over to the window. It took more energy to drag herself up there, but as soon as she got a clear view through the broken window, adrenaline poured in. Her eyes alighted on the flash of red she saw earlier, now identified as a woman in a red top. A bunch of villagers had gathered around the now unconscious woman and plucked her right up. The whole horde of them began to shuffle away with the woman held over their heads.

The shots. Helena hadn't seen it, but she was smart enough to put two and two together. The woman must have fired the shots that drew the village chief's attention away. That distraction had saved her life and Helena had seen that red in the window before his exit. That woman had saved her, and was now being carried away by the horde for it.

Not giving it a second thought, she raised her Picador and shot into the back of the crowd. Noticing her was a slow turn, but once a bullet hit, every single villager turned to look back in disturbing synchronicity. Then, all hell rained down at once.

It started with a thrown pickaxe that Helena easily evaded, but then the villagers dropped the woman. Helena watched her disappear under the horde with a wince. She could get trampled down there. There also ran the risk of stray carnage. These villagers were unpredictable, and Helena didn't trust them to leave the woman alone for that long. She had to get to the woman fast.

Picking off a few with her Picador from the relative safety of the window view, the closed doorway to the room suddenly rattled. Another villager appeared at the hole she had made. Someone else cursed behind them and started up a small ruckus from what sounded like four or five of them.

Drawing her Hydra from the holster at her leg, Helena cocked it against her thigh and blasted the one at the hole, his whole head exploding. The door burst in and five others lurched inside. She jumped from the window ledge and rolled.

She quietly cursed when a broken shard cut into her arm, but she had bigger worries now. The villagers had shambled towards the house and the small lot of them were only feet away now. She took aim again and cut large holes through the closest few of them, then took off to abandon the hot spot.

Her relocation won her time and distance to pick more off with the Picador while she deftly slipped in more Hydra ammo, but it also put her savior in danger. With the spin away from the group of them, some of the back villagers decided she wasn't worth the effort. Instead, they raised weapons on the unconscious woman to kill.

"Shit," she cursed, this time out loud.

She raised the Picador to fire off a couple of shots at the one with his pitchfork raised over the woman's head and narrowly avoided a rake being thrown at her. Helena emptied the rest of her sidearm clip into the two nearest, cursed again, and holstered it. There were too many of them and more had taken off to attack the woman.

Pulling one of her only grenades from her belt, Helena pulled the pin with her teeth and threw it. It landed to the far left of the group because she didn't want to risk hurting the woman, but the blast radius blew a good chunk of them. Before debris and bodies had even settled, she dashed in.

She blew the head off another with her Hydra who tumbled back into another, the shot radius enough to hit two or three of them at once. Another shot momentarily cleared the path to the unconscious woman, where a man lifted a hoedad to strike the woman. It was already starting to descend, she had no time. Blasting into the left side wall of them with her third and final Hydra shot, she ran, jumped, and tackled him as the hoedad fell inches from the woman.

Both she and the man hit the ground rolling. Helena scrambled off him in the dirt and sputtered. Before she could even get her bearings, another villager, a woman, dropped on top of her as grimy hands went around her neck.

Unwilling to release her Hydra, which was still in her hand, Helena lifted it and clobbered the villager over the back of the head with it. An open spray of blood over her face had her cringing, but the grip loosened a little for a second. She kicked the woman off, holstered her Hydra, got to her feet and unsheathed the loaded Red9 from her hip in one, quick movement. She cocked it and blasted the villager who had tried to strangle her to death.

Helena didn't like it, but it was her only loaded gun at this point. She stumbled the few steps back to the unconscious woman where another two villagers started for her. She blew them back, wasting six bullets in the meantime, and grabbed the spares from her belt. It was also harder to load; great. She wasted painstaking seconds slipping in the individual bullets, then cocked it again. The next villager took three of her precious six shots and now, the five others from the house had joined.

Mentally grumbling at the woman for costing her so much ammo, Helena gripped her under the arms and dragged her back. It physically hurt her to do this, but she reached for one of her two remaining grenades. There was just too many of them.

She ripped out the pin and very carefully tossed the grenade, aiming to catch as many as possible in the blast. She dragged the woman's dead weight back a few more feet, then shielded her when the bomb went off in case they were still too close.

With the villagers significantly dwindled down since the last grenade, Helena pulled out her knife to finish them. It was a lot messier, and Helena got a nick to her arm with a pitchfork for her stinginess, but by the end of it, she was the only one in the open left standing. Blood soaked, exhausted, dirty and injured, but standing.

Getting rid of the blood on the knife before sheathing it, she returned to the woman on the ground and bent over her to pick her up and hoist her over a shoulder. At least she was light. Her outfit was so clean, though, and Helena almost regretted having to carry her this way and smudge her.

Something metallic bit into her shoulder and Helena noticed some kind of weapon strapped to her side, but she didn't have time now to investigate. Helena had to make sure there were no villagers left so they wouldn't be followed. Sera's Red9 in hand, Helena went through the painstaking task of checking houses up ahead with the dead weight on her shoulder.

Finding one woman feeding chickens in a back corridor, Helena had to waste three more bullets to put her down. She grumbled as she put away Sera's Red9, moody and tempted to kick the corpse for stealing her ammo. She headed for building with the insignia. Maybe then, they could finally get a breather and some rest.

* * *

Helena carried the woman to the door, putting her down briefly to use the key. She let out a sigh of relief when the door unlocked and went in first to search inside. Assured the small room was empty, she took the woman back in her arms and brought her inside, putting her down again and going back for the crossbow and the rest of the woman's things. She hurried back, closing the door and barricading it with every movable furniture she could find.

Feeling this was the safest they were going to get, Helena returned to the unconscious woman's side. She pulled out the tranquilizer dart that was still stuck on the woman's neck, dreading what had been in it. These villagers didn't even seem to know how to use guns, she thought in frustration, and out of nowhere, they were using homemade tranquilizers?

Tossing it aside, she checked the woman's pulse, heartbeat and breathing.

 _Normal,_ she thought in relief.

She didn't want to have to force a reversal agent on the woman, especially without knowing what exactly had been in the dart. But now she had a new problem. Smelling salts wouldn't work and she had to go to the church, but she couldn't just leave the woman here, nor could she keep carrying her around until she regained consciousness. The only thing she could do for now, it seemed, was to wait.

She took off her jacket, using it as a makeshift pillow for the woman's head, then tended to her own minor injuries. When she was done, she sat close by, her back sagging against the wall as she let out a heavy, lengthy sigh. It felt like it had been so long since she last caught a breather, but the inaction, the unbearable quiet that came with it wasn't welcomed. Not moving or fighting made her feel the ache in her muscles and the dizziness and the nausea from two head injuries courtesy of the village chief.

Worst of all, she started thinking: about Smith and Jackson, about how many people she killed and how many more she would. Use any means necessary to rescue the president's daughter, they were told. Any means necessary.

Shaking her head, Helena grabbed one of her water canteens and took a swig, It was the first drink she's had since this morning, she didn't care that the water was warm or how her throat hurt when she swallowed. She was still thirsty, but she didn't take another swig, fully aware she wasn't going to find any clean water and food in this village and she had to ration what little she had.

Eating half an energy bar, Helena popped her Picador's magazine to reload it. Killing all those villagers cost her most of her handgun ammo and all of her hand grenades. She reloaded her spare magazines and did the same with Smith's handgun and Sera's Red9, all three handguns emptied from the fight.

Loaded Picador in hand, her gaze fell to the woman's peculiar weapon of choice.

A crossbow, she thought, one with a unique, highly-advanced, possibly illegal design. The arrows in the sleek quiver and the grapple gun appeared to be on par with the tech. Though tempted to inspect the woman's equipment and search her, Helena couldn't, in good conscience, violate the privacy of the woman who saved her life.

 _Why did she help me?_ Helena wondered. Was she the third party the village chief spoke about in his letter? Was she connected to Sera? Why was she here? Who was she working for?

Helena looked at her. Fair-skinned, Asian features, she clinically noted, and young-looking, probably not much older than her, late twenties or early thirties if she had to guess. She had shoulder holsters, boots, gloves and a utility belt, but the red button up top and the black leather pants hardly seemed practical or comfortable.

She grabbed her handheld, switching to its camera. Searching the woman felt immoral, but taking her picture to send to Hunnigan felt acceptable enough. Scooting closer, Helena attempted to get a better angle but paused. The woman's top wasn't buttoned all the way, showing an unnecessary amount of flesh. Clumsily, she put her handheld down and tentatively reached out, her hands suddenly trembling.

Despite her professional intentions, Helena Harper couldn't help but feel like a dirty, dirty pervert.

Maybe she shouldn't do this, it was hardly any different from outright frisking the woman. But like Sera, this woman was an unknown, someone who may possess vital information regarding the president's daughter, and Helena would not have hesitated to snap a photo of Sera without him knowing.

 _But,_ argued a small voice in her head, _Sera didn't save your life._

Helena grit her teeth in frustration, glaring accusingly at the woman's immodesty.

Any means necessary, she reminded herself, steeling her will and her trembling hands as she hurriedly and awkwardly fastened the buttons of the woman's top. She cursed, blushing so much her face felt like it was on fire. Quickly, she took pictures from several angles and scurried back against the wall like she had just committed a crime.

Her efforts proved to be in vain when the pictures failed to send. She checked, there was no reception here. She groaned. That explained why Hunnigan still hadn't contacted her.

Helena looked at the woman again, wondering if she should undo the buttons but quickly decided against it, her face becoming even redder.

 _Damn woman,_ she thought sourly. _Who shows cleavage in this kind of weather? It's like wearing a dress to a mission._

* * *

It was four hours later when the woman finally began to wake, time Helena spent vigilantly, restlessly on watch. She hurried to the woman's side, surprised to see her eyes already open, alert and inquisitive.

"I'm not sure if I should be thanking you," the woman murmured coolly, gazing meaningfully at the Picador held firmly in her hand.

"You saved me from the chief," Helena said, watching the woman. "You distracted him before he could strangle me to death. One of the villagers shot you with a tranq and I brought you here. How are you feeling?"

The woman sat up steadily, showing none of the expected side effects from the tranquilizer. Her eyes were clear and focused, her movements fluid and controlled. It was almost like she had been conscious the whole time.

"How long have I been out?" the woman asked, the deflection making Helena doubly suspicious.

"Four hours."

The woman looked at her, then smiled.

"You watched over me for four hours?" came the amused question, the woman's musical tone and mirthful eyes disconcerting Helena. "Well, then, I suppose that makes us even. My name is Ada Wong, and you are...?"

"Helena Harper," she responded, sounding more guarded than she would have liked. "What are you doing here, Ms. Wong?"

"Ms. Wong?" the woman repeated, amused, like it was such an odd thing to hear. "Would you believe I'm here looking for my boyfriend?"

Helena scoffed in the most unladylike way.

"I didn't think so," Ms. Wong said with a laugh, only seeming more amused. "Well, what now, Agent Harper?"

Helena recoiled as though struck.

"I never said I was an agent."

"Lucky guess," Ms. Wong practically sang, her expression serene.

Helena growled, nearly baring her teeth.

"Forget it," she snapped, getting to her feet and cursing the unhelpful, infuriating people she had met today.

This woman, this Ada Wong, if that was even really her name, wasn't going to tell her anything. There was something about her, something dangerous and disarming, a risk Helena couldn't take when she was so close to the president's daughter.

"Where are you going, Agent Harper?"

Though the question didn't make her pause, it certainly made a chill go down her spine. It wasn't because she was startled, but because in the few seconds it took for her to stand up and take a few steps, Ms. Wong managed to noiselessly get to her own feet and now stood right behind her.

"To the church," she muttered, not bothering to look at Ms. Wong.

"Hmm."

"Why, are you coming with me?" Helena barked, annoyed when Ms. Wong said nothing more.

"Maybe," was the non-committal, mysterious response, the kind she was quickly associating with this woman. "So, what's in this church?"

Helena didn't answer. She had a feeling Ms. Wong already knew.

* * *

Using a hatch found in the room, Helena dropped into a tunnel with Ms. Wong. She switched on her tactical light despite the tunnel being fairly lit with lanterns.

"What?" she grunted when she caught Ms. Wong smirking at her.

Ms. Wong shook her head, the smirk firmly in place.

"It seems you're prepared for anything, Agent Harper."

"What about it?" Helena grumbled, this time sounding more pouty than she would have liked.

Ms. Wong just smiled and held up something to her.

"Your jacket, Agent Harper. Thank you for lending it to me as a pillow."

Helena stared at Ms. Wong, skeptical. Still, Ms. Wong smiled at her, almost looking innocent.

Almost.

Helena took her jacket back, mumbling, "You're welcome," as she hurriedly wore it, not waiting for anything else Ms. Wong may say and proceeded down the tunnel.

"Agent Harper."

Helena stopped, bodily twitching in annoyance.

"What now?" she snapped, going ahead without even looking at Ms. Wong.

"Did you button up my top?"

With a squeak of protest, Helena promptly walked into a wall.

"Is that a yes, Agent Harper?"

"It was cold!" Helena blurted, fumbling to pick up her Picador from the ground.

Ms. Wong's laughter only furthered her embarrassment and the blush on her face.

"Is that so?"

"It's true!" she squawked, Ms. Wong's ambiguous tone flustering her. "I didn't do anything to you!"

Ms. Wong looked her, saying nothing for an uncomfortably long time with that damnable smile on her face. Helena squirmed under Ms. Wong's scrutinizing gaze until finally, the woman spoke.

"How considerate of you, Agent Harper."

Realizing she was being teased, Helena refused to dignify Ms. Wong with any sort of response. She marched ahead, silently seething as Ms. Wong intentionally made her footsteps heard, just to let her know she was right behind her, probably smirking.

Ignore it, she told herself. Just focus on the job, get to the church.

Halfway through the tunnel, they came upon a door. Helena turned to Ms. Wong, who looked back knowingly, armed with a Blacktail handgun that had a silencer. Understanding, Helena carefully pushed at the door.

Not locked, she found out, and indicated Ms. Wong to position herself at the other side of the door.

Helena kicked the door open, Picador at the ready. Her eyes caught a flash of blue light and a hunched figure nearby.

"Ah, stranger-" called a gravely voice, only those two words registering in Helena's mind before she saw a pair of glowing red eyes.

She fired, hitting the man between the eyes, and kept shooting until he stopped squirming. She approached the motionless body, her Picador firmly trained on it. The body at her feet was, indeed, that of a man's, his eerily glowing eyes still wide open. He was dressed in a dark, tattered trench coat, the hood pulled over his head and a piece of cloth covering most of his face.

His hand, she noticed, was grasping the front of the coat. Using her foot, she kicked the coat open, revealing belts, packs and pockets filled with grenades and ammunition.

"What the..." she muttered, checking the other side of the coat and finding more supplies. "Is he some kind of weapons dealer? What's he doing here?"

Ms. Wong stepped beside, casually examining the body.

"I think he just wanted to do business."

Helena scoffed.

"I saw his eyes glowing, he's like them. What would you have done?"

Ms. Wong gave an easy shrug, as she seemed to do with the rest of the world.

"I would have asked what he had for sale."

Helena, for the life of her, couldn't tell if Ms. Wong was joking or being serious. Turning her attention to something far less confusing, she holstered her Picador and flipped the body over, tugging off the large backpack the man had been wearing.

"What are you doing?"

If Helena hadn't been so intent in searching the so-called merchant's things, she would have detected the slight change of tone in Ms. Wong's voice.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she grumbled, opening the backpack and finding more supplies. "I'm taking his inventory. I lost a lot of ammo clearing out the village."

Being holed up in a small room for four hours, expecting an attack at any moment and ready to stand her ground, made her realize that she was very willing to kill her way to the president's daughter. Those villagers and this arms merchant, whatever they were now, were no longer human to her, and if she turned out to be wrong about it, she was going to face it later.

"Ugh, he's filthy."

Helena stopped and blinked, broken out of her thoughts and now wondering if she had heard right. She looked up, raising an eyebrow at Ms. Wong like the woman just said the world was round. Of course the man was filthy, this whole village was filthy.

"You don't want any of this?" she asked, having genuinely considered splitting spoils with Ms. Wong since the merchant seemed to have enough to run a small gun shop.

Ms. Wong, in turn, looked at her like she had just propositioned sex next to the corpse.

"I have enough, and that's disgusting."

With a shrug of her own, Helena resumed taking what ammo and grenades she could carry.

* * *

Coming out of the tunnel, they climbed a ladder up and went outside, immediately set on a path to the church.

"A cemetery in front of a church," Ms. Wong remarked, having since recovered from her small fit about poor hygiene and had since gone back to being amused with the world.

"We've got other things to worry about," Helena nodded to the various villagers, turning all business as she pulled her fully-loaded Picador from the sheath against her thigh. They hadn't been seen yet, but they would soon. Helena started to check her companion.

"Ready?" Ms. Wong asked, her crossbow out. She glanced at Helena's Picador with clear distaste.

"What?" Helena growled defensively.

"Do you have a silencer for that thing?"

_That thing?_

"I don't usually operate in stealth," Helena rumbled quietly.

Ms. Wong smiled in that knowing, teasing manner.

"So I've noticed."

_What did she mean by that?_

Ms. Wong nodded over to the path where villagers lingered and milled about their chores.

"We can take them out quietly. Put that away."

Helena didn't like the sound of that much.

"Sounds like a hassle."

Ms. Wong raised an eyebrow at the gun in her hand.

"It will save you ammo." she pointed out, her tone implying, isn't that what you want to do?

Helena twitched. Ms. Wong was smiling in a way she was growing to resent. She was tempted to refuse because of that look alone, but she didn't know how long she'd be here or how much more ammo she could spare. She got lucky with that random gun merchant, yes, but she'd spent a lot of ammo before…

"What are you thinking?" Helena asked, sighing in defeat. "Attack one and all of them will come, they operate like a hive mind."

"Then we do it quickly and quietly," Ms. Wong answered easily like that was simple.

Helena needed her Hydra to kill as effectively as Ms. Wong would have liked, and the noise would draw attention. She doubted Ms. Wong's arrows could do better.

"Put your gun away," Ms. Wong instructed, in the midst of modifying her crossbow in a manner Helena couldn't identify. "Use your knife."

"I'm using my knife?"

"You don't seem to mind the filth."

Helena frowned, but comparatively, Ms. Wong had been the one making a big fuss before. She reluctantly switched her Picador for her combat knife.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm wiring my arrows to a charge pack," Ms. Wong explained simply.

"You'll electrocute them?" Helena glanced down at the metal knife in her hand in alarm. "And you want me to use a knife?"

"The shock only lasts a few seconds," Ms. Wong dismissed. "At best, it will kill them. At worst, it will stun them or knock them out- get close and finish them off." She paused, then added, "Do it quietly."

"That thing packs enough of a charge to kill them?"

Ms. Wong shrugged.

"I haven't tried it yet. We'll see."

Her calmness was uncanny. Helena gave the crossbow an untrusting look.

"You better not hit me."

Ms. Wong's faint amusement radiated from those amber eyes, light in the encroaching darkness of night dawning in.

"My sights don't set where I don't want them to go."

Helena didn't know what it was. Everything this woman said made her more anxious. She gave her wary look and asked, "So, what's the plan?"

"I'll be on that roof," Ms. Wong said, nodding to the fairly tall hut that sat on the right side across, just before the graveyard. "Take cover behind the graves and work your way up."

"Right. Cover behind the graves," Helena started to grumble. "And how are you going to get to the- of course." Helena shook her head as Ms. Wong easily covered the distance using her high-tech grapple gun. She flipped over it when she reached the ledge, using the face of the building to propel her, graceful as a swan. "You just do that," Helena muttered. "I'll kneel in the mud behind graves and stab them. Great."

"Quietly," Ms. Wong graciously reminded her.

She ducked off, following around the current hut Ms. Wong had perched on and used that as her first cover since it led to a variety of raised, wooden poles and a smaller shed around the back. She peeked around the corner from there and found an unsuspecting villager chopping wood on a stump. She couldn't quite see Ms. Wong from her vantage flat to the shed, but she trusted the sneaky woman had watched where she went.

Sure enough, just a couple of seconds later, Helena heard the soft whisper of an arrow a second before the villager stiffened up. Dropping his axe, he fell to his knees with the shock current, but didn't cry out. Whatever had been done to them, it seemed to have radically increased their tolerance for pain.

Helena dashed up behind him as he stared with wide, glowing red eyes like the merchant's, head stiffly straight. She didn't take any chances and slid the knife half through his throat. Blood splattered on her again, but she repeatedly stabbed him in the chest to make sure he was dead. She couldn't be too careful with these villagers.

From there, Helena crept up to a tall gravestone and waited for Ms. Wong again. A woman strolled along the path, walking the dirt trail of the graveyard in that eerily possessed manner. Ms. Wong shot the woman when she got close enough, and after waiting a few seconds to let the initial charge pass, Helena grabbed her in her stunned state and took care of the rest.

It actually worked pretty well. The villagers were spread just far enough apart not to see each other get taken out, and the shock from the arrows seemed to keep from alerting the hive mind. Not initially, anyway. Helena slowly worked her way up from gravestone to gravestone, getting mud-slicked in the process and splattered with blood and sometimes that yellow substance - which she automatically rubbed off whenever it happened - but they were making progress. Four villagers down, and they hit their first trickier spot.

The next gravestone large enough to hide her wasn't for another two rows further, and three men stood a third row behind that. They weren't close enough to catch one without the others plainly seeing, and Helena couldn't make a dash for it. She wasn't even sure Ms. Wong's arrows could fly that far, since they had made it a good distance away from the tall hut. Even with its height vantage, the ground was slowly sloping up. Helena glanced back at the roof to try to determine what Ms. Wong wanted to do next, but the woman wasn't there any longer. She blinked.

"I'll take out the three huddled together. You can handle the lone one, can't you?" a soft voice said right next to her head.

Helena jolted, slipped in the mud and unintentionally squeaked as she fell on her butt. Ms. Wong's arm curled around her shoulder to steady her, and there was that smirk again.

She furiously tried to sit up fast. A second hand went over her mouth and the first hadn't left her shoulder either.

"Shh," Ms. Wong hushed again. "You really have a problem keeping quiet, don't you?"

Helena's cheeks were so warm, she could feel them rightly pink or red. She hadn't even heard Ms. Wong come up on her.

Ms. Wong pulled the hand from her mouth and she shrugged off the one on her shoulder, fervently trying to control her embarrassment. Even her pants were wet and brown now with mud. Her jacket was soaked with dirt and blood. Helena started to remove it, exposing a fresher, black shirt with twin leather straps that crossed around the back and holstered her sidearm and Sera's Red9.

"You look better when you're clean."

Helena steadfastly ignored the remark, refusing to be embarrassed any further. "Can you take out three of them?" she asked, then doubtfully glanced at Ms. Wong's crossbow that the woman had strapped to her back at some moment. "With that?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Ms. Wong said.

"What are you going to use?"

"They have weapons, don't they?"

That was cocky. Or very confident, if Ms. Wong had the skills to back it up. Nothing she had done yet had shown Helena that she couldn't, but Helena hadn't seen her fight in close quarters yet.

"You sure you can handle three?" she asked, checking for any hesitation.

There was none, only another smirk and a tease.

"I'd take down all four if I didn't like seeing you fight."

Before Helena could really interpret that, Ms. Wong nudged her.

"Let's go."

In another second, Ms. Wong had taken off, leaving Helena to scramble to her feet after the one target she had been given.

The men had already noticed Ms. Wong, but their movements were like a turtle's crawl in comparison. Helena actually slowed in her own advance to her target as she watched Ms. Wong glide into the fray, flip over the shoulders of one and somehow find the momentum to kick him back into one of his companions mid-air.

She landed effortlessly on two legs, then immediately lifted one in a sweeping sidekick to the third's jaw. She merely leaned mid-kick to avoid a thrown projectile from behind, came around a full 180, then almost walked up one of the others with a double kick to his chin.

One of the men recovered, raising a rusty machete he had drawn from his belt. Ms. Wong merely grabbed his wrist and turned to slice downward into another man, whom she cleaved right in half, and without missing a beat in the same movement, the one holding the machete went over her shoulder into the first one. The machete cleaved through both of them, impaling them to the ground. Ms. Wong kicked the head of the top one who was still moving and snapped his neck.

All this happened in a matter of seconds. Helena stared, stunned.

Feathers flew. A chicken clucked in protest as it smacked into her head.

"Agh!" Helena clutched her head, taking a step back from her own forgotten villager who had just thrown the squawking animal. And damn, he was strong! Her head throbbed from that chicken.

"Fucking farmer!" she cursed, and she might've been imagining it, but she could have sworn she heard that teasing laugh again.

She stabbed the man, then grabbed him by the shoulder to run the knife through his neck. A rusty saber helped her cleave through. She pushed the body away to see Ms. Wong just there with that all-knowing smile on her lips.

"Did I distract you?" Ms. Wong goaded, and Helena could feel her cheeks warming again.

But then, the farmer wasn't dead. Helena's eyes went to him as something slimy and yellow erupted from the stump of his neck, a fleshy pulsating mass that rapidly grew tentacles, flailed wildly at her.

"What the fuck!" Helena sputtered in surprise.

The tentacle lashed out for her then. It got as close as a foot before it went totally limp in an instant, dead. When it dropped, Helena saw the origin with a saber through it, pinned. But Ms. Wong hadn't moved. She had thrown the machete and pinned it like that. Helena looked at it, then back at Ms. Wong in disbelief.

"What are you?" she mumbled.

Ms. Wong chuckled and waved Helena on behind her. "Come on, there's more up ahead."

Shaking her head, Helena followed the mysterious woman.

* * *

With the church clear, Helena rushed to the door, only to find it locked. There were no door handles, there was no key hole, only a circular groove at the middle of the door.

"Damn it, not again."

"Something wrong?" Ms. Wong asked, the woman moving so fast it seemed like she just appeared behind her.

"I think I need a specific item to open this door," she said, backing up to see if there were alternate routes inside, but the building looked to have been fortified.

She checked her handheld, cursing when there was still no reception. She had been hoping she could contact Hunnigan now that she was out of the tunnel, but it seemed like she was out of luck. Putting her handheld away, she raised her head, just in time to see Ms. Wong taking something out of her own pockets.

"Use this."

It was the only warning Helena had before something round and shiny was tossed her way. She caught it, realizing it was the very thing she needed to open the door, but when she looked Ms. Wong's way, the woman was already zipping to the church's roof with her grapple gun.

The moment she lost sight of Ms. Wong, a call came through on her handheld.

_Fuck. She's been jamming the signal this whole time._

Ignoring the call for now, Helena checked her recent photos, finding all but the ones of Ms. Wong, instead replaced with a picture of the cleavage she had gone out of her way to cover up.

Her face red, Helena furiously deleted the picture.


	2. Pueblo, Part II

Mumbling curses after Ms. Wong's abrupt departure, Helena turned back to the ornate door. Solid looking and heavy, it was decorated with intricate designs of dark steel that had been shaped and curled over it. But most curious was the middle where a metal triangle sat over a circle with deep engravings that almost formed two crudely hewn circles within the steel.

Helena looked at the trinket Ms. Wong had tossed into her hands. The golden circle was dotted with indents around the core, which formed the insignia she was becoming all too familiar with. She turned the piece over in her hand to see jagged, uneven rock pieces sticking out the back. They matched the crude indentations in the steel.

This place had thrown stranger things at her yet. Ms. Wong had given it to her for a reason, she knew.

Cautious at first, she matched up the golden trinket to the door. The jutting back fit perfectly to the door's indentations, but nothing immediately happened when Helena pushed it in. She waited a second, thumbing the edge of the golden circle. The insignia was upside down against the others Helena had seen. Carefully latching her fingers around the medal, Helena applied a bit of force.

It turned. Something clicked behind the door like a latch, but the insignia wasn't upright yet. Helena applied more force with her fingers and rotated it another third, hearing another faint click behind the door. Again, it happened, three turns before it locked into place.

Helena stepped back in surprise when something heavy shifted on the other side, resounding slowly and heavy like old stone. She pulled free her Picador and stepped back from the door, readying herself for a fight. When the noises stopped, she took cover, waiting to see if a guard would come out to investigate but no one came, nor did she hear any voices or footsteps. If anyone was in there, they were waiting for her.

Slowly, Helena pushed open the ornate door. Nothing jumped out at her or made a quick noise. She couldn't even hear a scuffle, save for the creak of the door. She checked the room and rafters before entering, but there was no one.

Stepping into the room and looking both to her left and right, she found three thick steel bars that had been drawn back against the walls. They seemed to be attached to some old aged system. Were those what she had heard being pulled back from the door? Somehow, the key was linked to the mechanism that pulled back those bars. Amazing for people who seemed to be living in the medieval age, really.

Turning away from the oddly sophisticated locking mechanism for this old church, Helena turned back to the room. Directly ahead of her, that same insignia shone over the whole room, high above the altar like a curse. The church was small and felt damp with only three rows of old pews and a faded, trampled carpet that had seen too much use over the years. Candles at the front and back illumined small pockets of the room.

As she approached the small altar with heavy, faded curtains on either end, she checked the room for any possible guards. She could see the thick layer of dust that had settled over everything had been disturbed in this room. Someone had been here.

Helena tripped suddenly and barely caught herself on the haunted looking altar. She swiveled around fast, gun raised at her possible attacker, but there was no one again. Rather, there was an arm, limp and sticking out in the hallway. Helena's eyes lowered to the floor at the limb, it was obviously dead judging by its disgusting, white color. Following up that limp arm in the faint light of the candles, Helena found the body of its host. A villager dressed like a priest had burns all over his clothes and body, an arrow sticking out of his shoulder.

Helena frowned and cautiously stepped towards him, ready in case the man's head would burst open and he would become reanimated like the other. When the corpse remained still, she turned her attention to the arrow. It looked just like the ones Ms. Wong carried with her. Helena doubted any of the villagers carried a high tech crossbow and specialized arrows; the burns marks on the man suggested Ms. Wong had incendiary arrows of some sort.

Helena gripped her gun in need of renewed assurance. Ms. Wong led her straight to the president's daughter, but what for? What was she after? There were too many unknowns.

 _What does she gain from helping me?_ Helena wondered.

Turning back to check the altar where more dust had been disturbed, she found two more bodies behind the stand, a spear through one of them and the other headless. Helena checked behind the stone thoroughly, searching for clues or a secret passage back there. These people were the type for passages underground, she'd noticed. She backtracked to the front of the church past the brittle, little pews. There were two side passages branching off to the sides. Helena checked the right one first.

Nothing. The trail led her back to a dark corner that had been walled off and separated from the rest of the church for some reason. Helena left the stonewall alcove quickly, wanting to avoid being cornered in case of an ambush. She checked the left side and found another body next to a ladder against the wall. Hurrying through the cramped passage, she nudged the body away from the ladder with her foot.

When she reached the top of the stairs, she found herself facing an even dimmer corridor of walled stone. Helena turned right to follow it, but went slow. Nothing here had shown her signs of life yet, and she had a feeling that with Ms. Wong having been here, she wouldn't run into any, but still, she wouldn't leave it to chance. The president's daughter, Ashley Graham, was supposed to be in here somewhere and Helena was determined to find her, prepared for the very real possibility of finding a corpse instead of a girl.

Nothing moved or made a sound. Helena already passed four bodies, five including the one just up ahead. Ashley could very well turn out to be the sixth. Maybe that had been Ms. Wong's purpose for being here.

Shaking off the sinking feeling that she may have been traveling with an assassin in tow, Helena rounded the corner and met an unexpected obstacle. With a wide opening across the middle section of the platform, the dim light from the candles carried a little further now, and from what Helena could see, the path she wanted to take was blocked off with metal bars.

Helena crossed to the left side to see if the metal was rusty enough to pull down, but she faced no such luck this time. The metal almost looked new and may have been freshly installed like the door's lock mechanism, but there was no latch for a key this time.

Cursing, Helena turned back to the middle opening where there was no wall. An open ceiling made room for a grand chandelier of old make and style. Helena surveyed the ledges around the gaping square hole. They were gated by waist-high rails. She could make her way across the sides being slow and careful. She even had a rail to hold onto.

Or… Helena's eyes drifted to the chandelier. It was round, heavy duty and bulky, held up by black chains. Small candles had been lit around the outer circle. It looked to be about two hundred pounds of solid metal hanging there. She could use that, too.

But that was foolish, Helena chastised with her rational mind. One false step or a missed landing or missed grab could finish her with a broken arm or leg. The chains were holding it up now, but it wasn't moving or being forced on with more weight or swinging. She could even burn herself on those candles. Swinging across the chandelier would be dangerous, reckless and stupid, she could hear Hunnigan say.

With that, she took the outer ledge by the railing. Helena moved quickly, but carefully enough. It wasn't hard, not even when she hit the stone pillars because they weren't big. When she crossed the gated line, she simply hopped over.

Immediately facing her was another wooden door, this one with a regular handle, but that wasn't all. There was a thin, tiny wire tied from the door handle to rail. It wrapped to the handle from the stone three times, and when she touched it, it didn't give way at all.

Someone locked this door from the outside. Which meant something, or someone, worth capture was on the other side, someone like the president's daughter.

Helena pulled out her knife and struggled with it for a moment, the wire digging into her fingers as she cut the thin metal. It eventually gave way and she sheathed the knife in favor of her Hydra. There could still be guards inside or worse, and this would all be close quarters.

* * *

Taking a breath, Helena gently touched the door handle and turned it slowly, careful not to make a sound. She held her breath as she gently nudged it open, praying it wouldn't creak. It didn't, but even the slightest of openings didn't betray a sound. She couldn't even hear breathing inside. Carefully, Helena pushed it a little more.

The dim light of the hallway seeped into an empty room. Helena pushed it the rest of the way open, revealing a small, empty stockroom with a few stores and barrels and a couple of old shelves lining the walls. The whole thing smelled of dust and soot with the faint scent of urine standing out, but the dirty decay of death hadn't touched this place yet. Not that Helena could smell of, anyway.

The lighting was even dimmer in here than outside, the only source coming from the corridor, which was only dimly lit at best, but Helena opted not to use her tactical light just yet. The door had been locked from the outside and it was the only way in the room. Ashley still had to be here somewhere inside.

Helena didn't want to scare her. The girl was only nineteen and probably terrified, but even with the place so dark, there were only a couple of places she could be hiding. Helena suspected she jumped into one of those barrels for cover. Clearing her throat, Helena spoke softly to the room.

"Ashley," Helena called out, putting her gun away as she did. There was no one else here and it would probably frighten her more.

"Ashley, I'm not here to hurt you." Goosebumps rose on the back of her arms as she spoke into to the silence. "My name's Helena Harper. I'm with the US government, and I'm here to help."

No one responded. Helena couldn't blame the girl for being terrified, she only hoped she wasn't speaking to a dead body. Helena shivered at the thought, but approaching the barrels to open them herself would probably scare the girl more. Helena hoped to avoid that.

"Ashley, I know you're here," she continued with as soft as a tone as she could manage. "You don't have to be afraid. Your father sent me. I'm here to get you out."

Not even a hint of movement from the barrels. Helena's heart started to sink. She took a step towards them, calling the girl's name again.

Something touched her cheek, so faint, Helena would have missed it if she weren't so attentive an agent. She reached up fast, but it wasn't a hand or anything striking her. It was… water. A tiny droplet, to be exact. Helena turned her head up.

Above the rafters, the smallest, darker outline of a body lay rigid and softly trembling near the ceiling top.

 _Smart girl,_ Helena thought.

"Ashley."

"No," Ashley mumbled, realizing she was caught.

The faintest shimmer of another glistening tear caught the light before it fell. Ashley trembled more. "Go away!" Ashley tried to say sharply then, but fear and meekness marred her voice. "I'll shoot!"

 _She has a gun?_ Helena blinked in surprise and alarm.

"Ashley, don't shoot," she said, more out of concern for the girl's safety than for her own. "I'm here to help, I swear. I can show you my badge."

"The man who kidnapped me had a USSS badge, too!" Ashley protested, not moving an inch. "If you turn around and walk away, I'll let you live. Now, go!"

"Ashley, I'm not one of them," Helena insisted. She didn't want to have to subdue the poor thing, not after all she'd been through already. "I can contact headquarters and they can reach your father, he may even be there."

"You're… you're trying to trick me." Ashley argued weakly, protests dying in the face of a glimmer of hope. Helena could see her steadying herself up there. She couldn't believe it, poor thing.

"To what end?" Helena waited a moment for her to move, but she didn't. "Ashley," Helena called again when the girl didn't respond. "You know I can come get you if I wanted to, don't you? I don't want to have to do that. Will you come down? Please?"

There was a sniffle up above before Ashley softly mumbled, "I can't."

"You can't?" Helena asked, bewildered.

"No. I…" Ashley swallowed in the middle of her sentence, clearly nervous and scared. "I'm afraid of heights."

"You're afraid of heights," Helena repeated, staring up at her shaking form, "and you climbed into the rafters."

"Are you here to help me or not?" Ashley asked, actually sounding a little annoyed.

"I can catch you if you jump," Helena offered.

"Or you could let me fall to my death because you're evil," Ashley said, scoffing.

"Do you want me to come up there?"

"Yes."

"I can do that," Helena said, glad that the girl was being more responsive. "I'll carry you down, but I'm going to need something from you, too, Ashley."

"What's that?"

"I'm going to need you to drop the gun," she said, and Ashley went silent. "I don't want either of us getting hurt. Will you trust me, Ashley? Will you please drop the gun?"

"How do I know you won't shoot me with it if I do?"

"I have my own guns, I could have shot you anytime."

"Was that supposed to be reassuring?"

"It was supposed to be honest," Helena answered and waited, but Ashley didn't make a move to drop anything. "Ashley?" She didn't answer again, and this time, Helena had an inkling why. "Ashley, you don't have a gun, do you?"

"I have a crowbar," Ashley blurted defensively, "and I'll use it just as well as a gun."

Helena was starting to like this girl.

"I'm coming up," she told Ashley. "Don't hit me with the crowbar, please."

"No promises."

Helena smiled faintly as she began to climb up one of the crumbling bookshelves and jumped from the bottom shelf, not sure anything else higher would hold her. Ashley's head turned to her direction as she gripped one of the wooden rafters and hoisted herself up. Gleaming eyes watched her in the darkness, shiny and a little wet.

"I'm coming, Ashley," Helena assured, scooting her way over there carefully. She wasn't sure how sturdy this old wood was. Holding a skinny little teenager compared to holding her were two vastly different things, so Helena moved cautiously until she'd reached the middle where Ashley had laid flat. She was indeed clutching a two foot crowbar tightly to her chest.

"Do you think you can sit up for me?" Helena asked kindly when she'd gotten close enough to take her in.

The poor girl. With skin as pale as the moon, it looked like she hadn't seen daylight for days. Her clothes were dirty and unchanged, and she still hadn't stopped shivering yet.

"I don't want to fall off," Ashley admitted. "I can barely see anything in here without the lamp."

"You had a lamp?"

"I put it out when I heard the locks opening downstairs," Ashley explained, "and then, I ran up here to hide. I haven't moved for twenty minutes, because if I fall…"

"Here," Helena offered softly, reaching behind her ear for her tactical light. She turned it on to illuminate the rafters for the scared girl. "Does that help?

Ashley nervously looked at her again, then to the rafters around her from her spot. Slowly, she finally sat up, clutching both the crowbar and the floor rafters for support. Her breathing was still shallow, though. Helena scooted over a little closer to her yet.

"Are you okay?" she checked, lifting a hand to the girl's back for support. "Are you injured?"

"I'm okay," Ashley said quietly, much meeker now. "Can you… get me to the floor?"

"Yeah, I've got you," Helena assured, maneuvering around her a little until she crouched next to her. Helena slid an arm under her legs and kept the other at her back, secure. She hoisted and lifted Ashley with her, rafters creaking under their weight. "I'm going to jump down with you, okay?"

"Okay," Ashley whispered, finally abandoning her crowbar in favor of wrapping her arms around Helena's neck and burying her face so she couldn't see the jump. "Don't hurt me," Ashley pleaded quietly, arms tightened around Helena's neck in fear during the plummet. She stayed there a moment longer, and Helena felt she just needed someone to hold. She didn't move to set her down until Ashley eased up.

"You still okay?" Helena checked again, wanting to make the girl feel better if she could. Ashley hadn't stopped shaking yet, she noted with a frown. "Are you cold?"

"A little," Ashley admitted, not quite meeting her eye. Helena immediately took off her jacket. It was a little dirty from killing villagers, but she attempted to get it clean as best she could. By the state of her own, soiled clothing, Helena didn't think Ashley would have objections to the coat.

Not like Ms. Wong, a little voice in her head said snidely.

"Wear this," Helena offered, holding it out for her to pull on. "It's a little dirty," she said, "but it should keep you warm."

"Thanks," Ashley mumbled slowly, casting a sour look at one of the bloodstains, but she took the coat. "Um, Agent…"

"Harper," Helena reminded, "but you can call me Helena if you like."

"Helena," Ashley repeated, then finally looked to meet her eye. "Did my dad really send you?"

"He did," Helena confirmed, trying to cheer her up a little. "I'm going to get you out of here, Ashley. You must be starving," she said, then nodded to her jacket. "There should be some energy bars and trail mix in those pockets. Eat up for a minute," she told the girl, who began to search her pockets like she was looking for gold. Helena grabbed her spare, full canteen of water and handed it over. "Water," she assured, and Ashley almost dropped the food as she reached for the canteen.

When Helena started towards the door, Ashley looked back up quickly with a hint of fear and asked, "Where are you going?"

"I'm just outside this door," Helena reassured again, then showed her handheld. "I need reception to report in that I've found you, it's a little weak in this room."

"Don't go far," Ashley said, both a plea and an order. Helena gave her a small smile to comfort her and showed her she wasn't going anywhere, just outside the door.

"Right here," she repeated, then finally got back to Hunnigan, whose call she ignored a half hour ago. "Hunnigan- "

"I've been trying to reach you for the past five hours!" Hunnigan snapped immediately back through the phone. "You could have been injured, unconscious and lying in a ditch for all I knew!"

"Hunnigan, I'm-"

"Don't even try to finish that sentence, Helena! I've got the president here looking over my shoulder and I can't even get in touch with my operat- "

"The president's there?" Helena asked in a hushed tone.

"Of course he's here! His daughter's missing and he's been pressuring us to know every corner we turn and I can't even tell him if you're dead or alive over there! What's your status, Helena? Have you reached the church? Please tell me you have something to report after going dark the last five hours."

"I have the president's daughter."

Hunnigan's eyes popped like saucers.

"What? She's there? She's with you now? You've recovered her?"

"Yes."

"Is that your agent, Hunnigan?" another, more frantic voice spoke and rushed over. Helena could see the suit before his face bent over and joined Hunnigan's in the small screen. "Agent Harper! What is the status of your mission, Agent Harper? Where is my daughter? Have you found her?"

"Mr. President- " Hunnigan started to protest this unusual intrusion.

"Mr. President, sir," Helena said, speaking over Hunnigan. "I've located your daughter and she's in my custody now."

"You have? She is?" the frantic father blurted, losing all signs of professionalism in light of the news. When he was this close on the screen like this, Helena could see every line of age and stress on his face. Dark blonde hair like his daughter's even appeared to be threaded with more white than Helena remembered.

Helena felt horrible for him. As the President of the United States, he could show the nation no fear. Very few people even knew his daughter was missing at all, let alone taken to another country.

"Is she alright?" he asked desperately. "Agent Harper, let me see her!"

"I will, sir," Helena said, speaking quietly so Ashley wouldn't hear her. She was trained for these situations. Right now, the president was nothing more than a man desperate for his baby girl.

"But first, I'm going to need you to take a breath, Mr. President," she continued in a soft tone. "Ashley's scared. Seeing you will help, but not when you're like this, sir. I need you to calm down before I let you speak with her."

"Yes, of course," the president agreed, doing an impressive job of switching back to a former state of control. Helena imagined he's had to do so enough in other situations, but it was still impressive how quickly he recovered and composed himself. "You're right. Thank you, Agent Harper," he said, resuming a less desperate but still hopeful expression. "Please. Let me see my daughter now." he added, more in control. "That's an order, Agent."

"Yes, sir," she responded, and behind the president, she caught Hunnigan giving her an approving smile, looking proud of her.

She walked back into the room with the phone in hand, "Ashley," she alerted, making Ashley look at her. "I have your father on the phone."

Ashley dropped her chewy bar, gasping, "Daddy?"

Helena sat beside her and held up the handheld for her. Just watching her face and eyes light up was painful. Ashley reached for the handheld like it was the holy grail and cupped trembling fingers around it reverently. Helena wished she thought to clean up Ashley's face a little before showing her to her father, that poor man already had enough stress.

Helena tried to give them as much privacy as she could while sitting next to Ashley. She picked up the half-eaten energy bar that had fallen to the floor and pocketed it as father and daughter exchanged tearful words, tearful on the part of Ashley while the president kept from it.

Putting away the energy bar because they needed to ration, Helena checked the canteen and winced when she found it empty. She understood Ashley was probably dehydrated and needed it badly, but it was a mistake to neglect telling her to conserve their water. Now, they just had Helena's canteen left over. She hoped to get out of here well before water and food became an issue.

"You listen to Agent Harper," the president told his daughter after an emotional conversation. Helena could tell just by the way Ashley leaned to her that she wanted her father. "Whatever she tells you to do, Agent Harper's going to keep you safe. You must follow her orders to the T, Ashley. You understand, sweetie?"

"I'll listen, Daddy," Ashley promised, then glanced to Helena for just a second there. "Thank you for finding me and sending her to save me."

"I'd send the army if they could make it there in time," the president countered, and Helena believed him. "Ashley, I love you. I love you so much, my girl, and I'm going to see you soon. The extraction team will be there to pick you up. Just listen to Agent Harper, okay?"

"I will, Daddy," Ashley promised like a younger girl than her age, afraid. "I love you so much. Please tell Mom, too..." with the mention of her name having passed, Helena tried not to listen to give them a little privacy for one more moment. The president and Ashley used all of it to exchange their love, then finally, when Helena feared she'd have to interrupt them, the president spoke up.

"Agent Harper."

Helena looked back his way to the little screen.

"Take care of my daughter," he said, maintaining the brave front for his daughter. "I expect to see you both on home soil by tomorrow."

"Yes, sir." Helena agreed. There was no way she could guarantee that, but Helena didn't take away what little faith and hope they had left. With the President's final goodbye to Ashley, Hunnigan came back on the screen.

"Helena," Hunnigan began, back to her usual, professional self. "We're sending more teams to your location, we're directing all our resources and manpower there. I'm still trying to get a hold of Leon, he must tracked down Ashley's kidnapper in Russia. I've sent you a map and directions to the extraction point. It's the tower just past the Salazar family castle."

"Got it," Helena said. "Anything else?"

"Yes, I have some intel for you. I managed to trace back that insignia to the time of the first castellan in that region. It was used by a religious group who called themselves Los Illuminados. I'm still trying to look into it, but whatever they were doing or teaching bothered the first castellan so much that he had them wiped out."

"I've been seeing that symbol all over this village," Helena added. "Is Saddler their leader?"

"I can't confirm that. We're still working through lists of names and so far, nothing suspicious has come up. I did, however, find Luis Sera. Apparently, he's a native of Pueblo who left to attend school in the US. He has several masters in science and engineering, but he took a job as cop in Madrid despite more lucrative job offers. He quit two years ago and there hasn't been a trace of him since."

Helena nodded, taking it all in and wondering about Sera's intentions.

He used to be a cop. Was he investigating this group? Was he the anonymous caller who tipped them off about Ashley?

"I assure you, Agent Harper, I am a lot smarter than I look," she remembered him saying.

Smart enough to earn all those degrees, she thought, possibly smart enough to be involved in bio-organic weapons like the scientists in Racoon City, and maybe smart enough to know how to stop them.

Helena glanced at Ashley, finding the girl right next to her, listening in.

"Hunnigan, put word out that any hostiles are to be treated like BOWs. They're strong, fast and resistant to pain. There are organisms inside these people, probably parasitic. I've seen one, it came out from a man's neck after I killed him," she said, relaying all the information she could to the teams en route. "Tell them to keep their distance. It had tentacle-like appendages that had a lot of reach. One of the tentacles had something that looked sharp attached to it - it looked like bone - and it swung at me."

Though Hunnigan looked worried, she nodded.

"I'll get right on it. "

"And look up Ada Wong," Helena added. "You'll probably find nothing on her but it's worth a try."

"Alright," Hunnigan said after a short but noticeable pause. "You should get going, Helena."

"We will," Helena complied, ending the call.

* * *

"We have to jump down," Helena told her new companion. "Do you want me to carry you again?"

"Please." Ashley tucked in her head against Helena's shoulder and shut her eyes tight.

Helena gave her a reassuring squeeze, jumped down, and endured the small wince of pain from landing with double the weight.

"Come on," she urged, putting her back down. "Make sure you keep that taser I gave you handy. Shock anything that comes close."

"I've got it," Ashley assured, holding it up across her chest to show Helena.

"Good," Helena praised, starting for the double doors of the church, but hung back one extra moment to warn the girl. "There are bodies outside, try not to pay attention to them. Just stay close behind me and I'll keep us moving, okay?"

"Okay, Helena," Ashley promised. "I won't go where you don't tell me to."

Helena started out first with Ashley close behind. The village hadn't changed in the past half hour from what Helena could see from the church. It's become clear to her that the villagers were a very disorganized bunch and communicated poorly, to the extent that those outside the church had no idea the guards inside had been dead for hours, but she suspected they would encounter resistance en route to the extraction point.

Though, how long ago had Ms. Wong really been there, she wondered.

Behind her, Ashley let out a little gasp as they stepped out of the church to the vast graveyard ahead. Bodies littered the ground everywhere, and it smelled horrible, a mix of blood, pus, and death lingering heavily over everything.

"You did all this?" Ashley asked, eyes transfixed on the bodies as they passed. She hurried up closer behind Helena for support.

"I had help."

Thinking about Ms. Wong, Helena still had heavy reservations, especially as she had seen for herself how deadly the woman could be. So far, Ms. Wong had been helpful, but what would happen if she outlived whatever usefulness the woman seemed to see in her, and how did Ashley play into it?

"Was it that woman you mentioned?" Ashley asked curiously. "She was with you?"

"She wasn't with me," Helena corrected. "I don't know who she is."

"You know, I think someone came into the church earlier," Ashley said, thinking on it.

"I think that was her," Helena confirmed, content to provide Ashley with the distraction of talking as they made their way through the creepy graveyard to the tunnels again. It was probably good to keep her mind off things.

"I've been in that room since I came to, but there were guards outside my door. These priests kept muttering something, some kind of chant or something, it sounded demonic. It was really scary, they just kept chanting all day and night. Then today, a few hours ago, there were some unusual noises outside. I couldn't see anything, but it sounded like a commotion. After that, it was quiet. No more chanting. And when I went to the door, I couldn't open it anymore."

Helena's brows furrowed as she glanced back.

"You could before?"

"I could…" Ashley trailed off, then shied back a little, "but I didn't like to. The guards outside scared me. I just hid most of the time."

If Ashley could open the door before this 'commotion' that took place, it must have been Ms. Wong after all who locked Ashley in. Was it to protect her or… Helena couldn't imagine what other reason she would have done it for when she had so easily handed over the key, but Helena didn't like it. It felt too set up, and Helena didn't like coincidences. Who was Ms. Wong, anyway? Whoever she was, she was good. A little too good, even.

"How long were you there?" Helena asked, seeking a timeframe.

"I don't know," Ashley breathed, sounding stressed. "It felt like days, but maybe I'm exaggerating. My watch and cellphone were missing by the time I woke up, and I was already feeling pretty bad then, so…" Ashley swallowed, then asked faintly. "Helena? Do you have any more water I could have?"

"Not enough," Helena regretted to tell her, again berating herself for not telling Ashley the need to ration. They had little more than half a canteen left. "We have to conserve the rest of my supplies until we hit the extraction point. I don't know how soon they'll be here to pick us up, so we have to be careful with what's left."

"Aren't we heading for the extraction point now?"

Helena didn't want to depress the poor girl or get her hopes up prematurely, either. She planned on getting her out of here, but Helena was a realist. They had a whole village to go through until that point, and Ashley wasn't trained to operate on so little food and water like she was.

"It could be a long night," Helena only answered, hoping she'd understand.

Ashley went quiet for another few seconds. Helena pulled up at the small entry to the secret passage she had used to get to the church.

"Careful," she warned, stepping ahead of her to the edge of the platform. "It's a drop." She started down first with Ashley following after.

"With all these drops, I might get over my fear of heights here," Ashley joked nervously.

Helena glanced up to check on her, remembered her skirt only after, and quickly lowered her eyes with a small cough in the back of her throat.

"Are we almost there?" Ashley asked, sounding more nervous again as Helena's feet touched solid ground.

"You're there," Helena said, guiding Ashley down the last step to the floor. "Stick behind me," she reminded gently. "You heard what I said to Hunnigan, these villagers aren't normal. They're obviously keeping you alive for some reason, but I don't think they're above hurting you."

"They're acting so weird," Ashley mumbled, shuddering. "The men outside really wouldn't stop chanting, it was so creepy. The only time they stopped was when this old man showed up."

"Old man?" Helena asked, making her way through the tunnels ahead, Picador drawn and held.

"Yeah, his robes were different. More… more like a magistrate's, with a purple cape and hood, and he carried a staff around. Everybody else quieted down when he showed up."

"Sounds like he could be the leader," Helena observed, only half focusing, but catching every word Ashley said and committing it to memory.

"I think so, too," Ashley agreed. "He was the one who always offered me food and water. It was easy to say no at first, I didn't want to take a chance. He could have put anything in my food."

"That was smart," Helena praised, surprised with her a little. It took a lot of willpower to deny food when one was starving like that. "Did you eventually give in?"

"A little," Ashley admitted, eyes casting down in shame. "For the water, not the food. I thought I was going to die of thirst. I only took a few sips, but…"

"You did well, Ashley." Helena told her with a glance back. "You survived. That's what's important, and it was smart not to eat the food."

Ashley gave her an appreciative smile for the encouragement. "I thought it was him again when I heard the door unlocking. That's why I hid in the rafters. I didn't want to be tempted, so I put myself up there where I couldn't easily come down for it."

"With a crowbar?"

"It came off the rack when I started climbing it." Ashley said defensively. "I thought if I hid up there with it, maybe he'd leave the food and go away. Then, I could try getting out the door with it. The creepy men were all gone by then. They locked me there, so I thought maybe they had abandoned the doorway."

Her actions and reasoning in the face of a life-threatening situation displayed an impressive clarity. Helena wouldn't have thought she would be so clear headed in her situation.

"You handled it well, Ashley. That kind of forethought will keep you alive out here. Come on."

They ventured through the rest of the caverns underground, passing the dead merchant, the slender passage, and a few hanging lanterns that kept the cave dimly lit, helped along by Helena's tactical light as well. It didn't take them long before they reached the door to the house again and entered it.

They had been lucky so far, but as Helena had expected, that luck couldn't last forever. Motioning for Ashley to keep quiet behind her now, Helena slowly opened the door to the outside.

"Intruder! Die!" a man hollered in Spanish before she had even got it half open.

"Shit," Helena swore and closed the door before the blade of an axe buried deep into wood. "Stay back and get down!" she ordered Ashley and didn't have time to glance back if she had listened or not.

She slammed the door open and started shooting the man who had thrown the axe. He stumbled, but didn't stop. She took careful aim at his head for the most damage. She would have been able to hold him off with this distance, but he wasn't the only one. Other villagers had begun to gather to the area, likely ordered there by their leader.

Helena turned her Picador on another two villagers coming from the dirt road, She stepped out of the house and continued to alternate her fire between the three of them, backing into the bell tower in an attempt to lead them away from the house.

The man with the axe was the first to lose his head, but quick in its place, tentacles sprouted with a sickening squelch.

More concerned by those than the other villagers for the moment, Helena spent perhaps a few seconds too long gunning him down before alternating. She jumped back and rolled, barely avoiding being stabbed in the gut.

This was going too slow; behind the first two, Helena could see more villagers up between other houses approaching. These people were like cockroaches. For every one she killed, another ten others sprung forth, and who knew how many more were hiding in that fog?

Pulling free her Hydra, Helena blasted both with one shot. They collapsed, but weren't dead yet. Sheathing her gun, she instead pulled a knife to conserve her ammo.

"Helena!"

Helena's head rose sharply to see another woman climbing in through a window that led to Ashley. She had gone too far away from the girl. Rushing back, she heard a small squeak from inside. When she burst into the door, Ashley had backed up against the wall, clutching the taser to her chest. At the girl's feet, the woman lay on the ground, her body convulsing.

Hurrying over to it, Helena stepped on a shaking shoulder to keep her down, then blasted the woman through the back. The woman stilled, and with her head still intact, the organism didn't emerge.

She quickly went to the frightened girl. "Are you okay?" she asked, quickly checking her body for injury or signs of harm.

"I think so," Ashley said on a shaky breath.

"Come with me," Helena ordered, gently taking her by the arm. "I've got a safer spot for you." Hurrying outside with her, she led them back to the tower she'd just backed up to. "Up there," she said, nodding up the ladder. "It's a small, enclosed platform on all sides. Keep your eye on the hole in the ground and tase anything that tries to come up."

"Where are you going?" Ashley asked, sounding terrified of being distanced from her. "I want to stick with you."

"I'll be back," she promised the frightened girl. "I need to clear out our path to the gate. You'll be safest up here till I come back for you."

Eyes round with fear, Ashley pleaded, "Don't stay away long."

"I'll be back as soon as I can," she could only promise again, and was surprised when Ashley unexpectedly hugged her.

"Okay," Ashley whispered, regretful, but understanding. "Be careful, Helena."

* * *

With the path now clear, they proceeded to the farm only to find more villagers in the area. They ducked out of view, Helena cursing the open space and the lack of cover, the closest being a small shack that could easily become a death trap if they were swarmed. She looked to her right and noticed what could be the best hiding place for Ashley.

"Ashley-"

"No."

"It's to keep you safe," Helena reasoned lamely.

"It's a dumpster, Helena."

"It has four walls and a lid," she pointed out. "There's nowhere else you'd be safer."

Ashley didn't respond, instead continuing to stare at her incredulously.

"... I'm sorry?" she said, but still the stare persisted. "Ashley, please work with me here. Your father said to listen to me, remember?"

Ashley gave her a diminutive, stubborn look. She surveyed the garbage dumpster, then batted another unhappy, doubtful look her way.

"You better not be long."

"Thank you," she breathed in relief, holding the top open for Ashley, and waited patiently as the girl reluctantly climbed in.

"It's really dirty in here," Ashley complained before she could go, reminding Helena of a certain woman she barely knew.

"I'll hurry," Helena assured her.

Ashley didn't hug her this time or wished her safe, too disgruntled with her makeshift shelter. Regarding the girl apologetically, she gently closed the lid overtop and hurried off to investigate the farm.

* * *

 True to her word, Helena made quick work of the villagers in the nearby fields and buildings. As she surveyed the rest of the area, she only came across two more villagers standing around. The rest must have rushed down when she had been clearing out the bottom crowd. Helena eliminated them without a problem, having learned to avoid shooting their heads to keep the organism from bursting out.

Moving on, she took up the trail to the village gate that she'd seen before. It was too tall for one person to jump without adequate grips to climb up, but with Ashley, she could boost the younger girl up on her shoulders, though it meant Ashley would have to face her fear of heights again.

Heading back to the dumpster, she came around to the front of it.

"Ashley?"

"Pull up the lid!" Ashley yelled, coughing and gagging from inside.

Helena did so, and the girl pitched herself free over the edge immediately and gave her half a heart attack as she somersaulted to the ground, still coughing.

"Ashley," she called softly as she knelt beside the girl. "Are you okay?"

"You try breathing in there," Ashley grumbled miserably. "I have a headache now."

"I'm sorry," Helena apologized again, reaching to help Ashley up from the ground. She was concerned about the girl's worsening condition; Ashley would need to rest soon. "Come on, let's get you away from here," she said, giving a little to tug to indicate Ashley to stand, but the girl didn't budge.

"Helena…" came the faint, frightened whisper.

Ashley was staring at her hands, her trembling, bloodied hands.

"Shit," Helena cursed before she could stop herself.

She took Ashley hand by the wrist and examined the blood there. She looked to the girl, who was pale and shaking. There were flecked traces of blood on her lips, too. Helena didn't know what to make of it. Ashley had said she'd refused to eat anything, but maybe in the few sips she'd taken. Or when she was unconscious… what had these bastards done to her? Helena had a sneaking suspicion and a bad feeling about it. She hoped she was wrong.

"Am I going to be okay?" Ashley asked, her voice cracking.

"You will be when I get you out of here," Helena reassured, careful with her words, and helped wipe the blood from Ashley's hands.

When the girl wiped her lips clean, she offered the flask to help get rid of the taste of blood in her mouth. Ashley didn't need to hear any 'if's now, even if that was the case in their situation. She couldn't guarantee anything, but she wouldn't let that show and further scare the girl.

"It's okay, Ashley." she whispered in a softer voice as they went along, arm still around the scared girl. "I've got you. You're going to be alright. I'll do everything I can to get you home."

The truth of those words a little questionable, it still earned her a side glance from Ashley trying to feel a little better. Helena squeezed her side as they pulled up to the gate at the front. She nodded ahead to it.

"I'm going to need your help here. Think you can climb on my back to get over this and unbar the door from the other side?"

Ashley looked at the great wall before her and swallowed, trepidation clear.

"I'll try," she said, and even though it was a shift from one fear to another, Helena was happy to get her mind away from the blood.

She knelt on the ground and allowed the girl to climb up on top of her shoulders. Ashley wobbled a bit at first, but then balanced with a hand on the wooden door.

"You got it?" she asked.

"Yeah," Ashley replied, steadying on her. "You can stand up now."

Helena did so carefully, letting Ashley balance against the door. Helena heard a grunt from the girl before her weight rose entirely from her shoulders. Ashley balanced on the top a moment, looking down.

"It sure is high up here…"

"Is there anyone there?"

"Not that I can see," Ashley said, taking in a deep breath.

"You've got this," Helena encouraged. "The ground will be under your feet before you know it."

"That's what I'm worried about..." Ashley mumbled, then took a moment to gather herself. "Okay. Here I go!" She jumped. Helena was actually quite proud of her. "Ohh," the poor girl groaned as she landed with a soft thump on the other side. "Why did they make it so tall?"

"Do you see where you can unlock the door?"

"Yeah, it's got a beam," Ashley answered, her voice strained. "It's heavy too."

"Can you lift it?"

Ashley panted with effort. "Not the toes, not the toes!" she squeaked as something heavy dropped to the ground. "Okay! You can open the door now."

Helena pushed one door open wide enough for her to slip through before it hit the heavy beam on the ground. She went straight to the girl and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

"Thanks. You did good, Ashley."

Ashley smiled a little at the praise, her anxiety from when she had coughed up the blood before easing a bit.

"Come on," Helena said, leading her up the dirt road. Walled in on both sides by mountains, it was the only route they could take. They hit a bridge just a few steps later and Ashley groaned.

"Why are they always heights?"

Helena took Ashley's hand in one of hers and drew her Hydra with the other just in case. She led the girl across the drawbridge that way, then pulled up a little short when they reached the other side. There was a large, log cabin, the only one in their walkway. The window opened out on their side, and from it, a soft, blue glow emitted. A glow Helena had seen before.

"What is it?" Ashley asked, noticing that she was tense.

"Stay behind me," Helena ordered quietly, whispering.

She released Ashley's hand and crept forward. The blue light loomed and flickered, just like the light of the strange, blue fire she'd seen in the caverns. She approached the house from the wall facing them and crept along it to a window. When she peeped in, she saw gleaming weapons on the counter, laid out like bait.

There was a man with his back to the window. He was draped in blue robes, and they swished as he happily supplied someone.

"A pistol for you, stranger!"

Helena moved from the window quickly as he started to turn. A weapons distributor in these parts? Was he supplying arms to the villagers? She couldn't let that happen here. These people were dangerous enough without guns.

She crept to the front door, being cautious not to be seen or heard, while Ashley stayed down beside her. When she reached the front door, she motioned for the girl to stay there.

Stepping out in front, she kicked the door flat to the wall and charged in, gun raised.

"Welcome, stranger-!"

Helena blasted him with her Hydra. When she approached his unmoving figure to check, her eyes widened in recognition. Alarmed, she fired again and again into his chest.

"Uh… Helena," Ashley's shy voice carried over.

"Ashley, stay back!" she yelled, kicking his limp figure over and shooting the back of his head.

"Helena," Ashley called her again, wincing when she shot through his leg. "Helena, he's dead!"

Helena paused, gaze raising to the girl in the doorway watching her with worried eyes.

"I've seen him before, I killed him!" she exclaimed. "He was the body we passed in the tunnel."

Ashley's eyes popped wide before darting back to the bloody mess on the floor.

"...shoot him again!" she shrieked, and Helena didn't need to be told twice.

* * *

 "What is this place anyway?" Ashley was asking moments later, obviously feeling safe enough to enter the house now that the merchant was definitely dead.

Helena turned around and scanned the room at the question, her eyes widening at what she saw.

In her rush to kill the merchant a second time, she had overlooked an entire wall of ammunition and guns. Helena stepped towards it, slightly afraid it would disappear if she looked away. It was glorious, really, with ammo of every type and make. It had a caliber of shotgun shells that might even fit her Hydra, and knives, rifles, grenades and even an RPG. Helena thought she might have died and gone to heaven.

"It's beautiful," she murmured, taking a careful step towards the pleasant visage of guns.

Footsteps clicked near the back entrance before the door opened. At once, Helena snapped from the pleasant dream and rushed at the intruder. She grabbed him by the front of his shirt, a familiar, elegantly designed vest, and threw him to the wall.

"Senorita!" Sera's familiar voice floated over her. "Watch the hands, heh? You'll get a man excited throwing him around like that."

Helena shoved her Hydra under his chin, having had enough time to quickly load one shell in the gun.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she growled, taking the gun he was carrying, another Red9, and threw it aside. "Are you working with him?" she demanded. "Are you working with these people?"

"I was merely doing business with him, Agent Harper!" Sera blurted in Spanish, both his hands held up. "I was merely doing business with him, Agent Harper," he repeated himself in English, much calmer. "And now he is dead. Huh. I'm embarrassed to say I hadn't thought of that, it would have been easier for my wallet."

"Business?" she snorted, finding the response ridiculous. "He's one of them!"

Sera looked at the merchant's dead body, then back at her.

"That may be so, Agent Harper, but he was a businessman before he was a ganado, and not even the plaga could take away the entrepreneur in him," he explained, forthcoming with two things she would ask him about later.

"He deals firearms, Agent Harper. Unlike you, I didn't have a chance to recover my guns from the Big Cheese. Speaking of which, is that my Red9 in your holster, or are you just happy to see me?"

He spoke the last sentence in Spanish, and he looked thoroughly amused when she sneered at him in distaste.

"Ah, so you do understand Spanish," he said, grinning. "Can you speak it as well? I do love American girls who can speak my mother tongue, almost as much as they love me."

Helena twitched, tempted to pull the trigger. Ashley looked between them, confused about the last exchange, but she did step even closer to Helena, wary of Sera.

"Does he sell weapons to the locals?" Helena asked, needing to know if she should have Hunnigan warn the teams about heavy firearms.

"He's a businessman, Agent Harper," Sera stressed, chuckling. "He only cares to deal with paying customers, and these people have nothing to pay or barter with. However, Ramon Salazar has purchased over ninety percent of his merchandise. I would stay clear of the castle if I were you, Agent Harper."

"The castellan?" Helena murmured, eyes narrowing. "He's involved in this? We need to get to the tower past the castle. Is it blocked or guarded?"

"It shouldn't be," Sera said, wisely not responding with another of his quips. "They use those roads frequently, and they've never had a reason to keep a lookout this far into the village. Though," he added, glancing at Ashley, "that will change the moment they realize you have the president's daughter. Agent Harper, may we continue this conversation in a… different position?" he asked, grinning weakly. "I'm finding it very uncomfortable with the barrel of your gun at my throat."

Helena scowled, recognizing Sera was finally willing to cooperate, but wishing she could beat that grin off his face.

"Start talking," she ordered, releasing him and holstering her Hydra. "Ashley, take a seat, rest up while we're here," she advised, speaking much softer.

"Okay," Ashley obliged, though clearly still uneasy around Sera. "What are you going to do?"

"Take as much ammo and grenades as I can hold," Helena said, quickly going for the lone RPG and strapping it to her back. She glanced at Sera over her shoulder and barked, "Talk."

"Of course, of course, Agent Harper," Sera responded in his usual merry way. He strutted towards Ashley, flashing her a smile and asking, "Is this seat taken, senorita?"

When he leaned closer, Ashley reared back and glared at him in disdain.

"As a matter of fact, it is," she said, standing up and then dragging both chairs to the other end of the table.

Sera was blatantly enjoying the view of the girl walking away until a bullet sailed past his head. Both he and Ashley went still, neither hearing the gunshot. Helena stood between them, aiming her Picador at him, the gun now with a silencer, but the dangerous look in her eyes looked far more threatening than her weapon.

"Treat her like that again and the next bullet is going in your head," Helena growled, struggling not see her sister's abusive ex-boyfriend in Sera's place.

Sera, finding himself holding up his hands again, finally seemed serious.

"I understand, Agent Harper, and I apologize, to Ms. Graham and you both." he said, sounding contrite. "I'm still willing to speak, if you're willing to listen."

Helena slowly lowered her weapon, simply repeating, "Talk."

She turned to Ashley and asked, "Are you okay?" and when Ashley assured her, she returned to the shelves of guns and ammunition, waiting for Sera to talk.

Sera remained standing, leaning against the wall and took a deep breath.

"I'm sure you know by now that I was born and raised here in Pueblo, and that my trail disappears after I quit my job two years ago. I went back home, Agent Harper, and this is what I found. I'd be one of them now if I wasn't of use to Saddler, their leader," he said, confirming Helena's suspicions about Saddler.

"He brought the Los Illuminados and the plaga back to life. He took over the castle, he took over this village, and now, predictably, he wants to take over the world, starting with your country."

Helena continued to listen, setting her handheld to record Sera. She grabbed a box of 10 gauge shells to reload her Hydra and walked back to Ashley, who seemed relieved by her proximity.

"The Los Illuminados worship a parasitic organism they reverently refer to as Las Plagas. They willingly host to the plaga in their bodies, believing it to be some sort of spiritual ascension or some such. I became part of Saddler's research team, spending the last two years studying the plaga and secretly searching for a cure, a way to reverse its effects or to remove it completely. From what you have seen of Pueblo, Agent Harper, Las Plagas is a fitting name, yes? It has, indeed, spread like a plague. Very few of the infested retain their free will or higher reasoning, most become nothing more than cattle."

 _Ganados,_ he had referred to them earlier.

"Neither of you will be pleased with what I'm about to say," Sera warned them, his gaze lingering on Ashley in a way that made Helena uneasy for entirely different reasons.

"Saddler has a means to control the plaga and, consequently, its host. He's infected Ms. Graham, intending to send her back to her father so that she, in turn, will infest him. I suspect, Agent Harper, that he's done the same to you."

"And you just stood there while he did this to her!" Helena roared, swiftly crossing the distance between them and slamming Sera against the wall. Behind her, Ashley stared blankly, her face pale.

"What could I have done, Agent Harper!" Sera shouted back, finally showing some real emotion. "If I had tried to stop them, they would have killed me, and then I wouldn't have been alive to tell you where she is! I blew my cover to help you, and I have a way to save you both. I am not your enemy, Agent Harper."

He looked her in the eye then, no more fear, and it seemed, no more lies. Helena shook, struggling with the effort to calm down. She couldn't afford to let her temper get the better of her, Ashley's life depended on it. Gritting her teeth, she let him go, not realizing she had lifted him inches off the ground.

"Dios," Sera muttered, apparently sharing the sentiment. "Take this," he said, offering them a storage device. "It contains all the data I've compiled about the plaga, including my progress on the cure and schematics of the machine I've designed for it. Is either of you coughing blood?"

Ashley made a strangled noise in her throat, her eyes wide in fright. Helena took the storage device from Sera and quickly went to Ashley's side, standing in front of the girl protectively.

"Ashley is. Can you still help her?"

"The plaga egg has hatched," Sera said, "but I can give her something to slow the growth. They took everything I had when they captured us, but I have more of the pills hidden away in a passage nearby. Agent Harper, you'll likely be in the same condition by the time I get back to you."

"You said slow. Can't you get rid of it?" Helena asked, gently grasping Ashley's shoulder in hopes of soothing the trembling girl.

"We'll need my machine to do that," Sera explained. "It's in the lab on the island. The location is in the data I've given you."

"Then we have to go. Now," Helena said as she took out her handheld and plugged in the storage device, starting to download the data from it.

"Yes, of course, of course," Sera agreed, sounding like a man eager to assuage his guilt. "If I may I ask one thing, Agent Harper, may I have my Red9? She is precious to me," he purred, magically becoming insufferable once again.

Helena glared at the Spaniard, half tempted to punch him again, but out of the corner of her eye, a low glow caught her attention. She frowned and left Sera to check the window.

In the distance, a faint illumination in the darkness crested the hilltop way above them. Helena vaguely identified a torch, then another appeared just behind it to the left, and then another on the right side, more and more until they lit up the whole hillside with light.

"Damn it!" Helena cursed, shutting the window. "Barricade the doors and cover the windows!" she ordered Sera. "We've got a fucking army outside. Sera, grab more guns."

"Aye, Agent Harper. Are we heading into war?"

His humor not appreciated, Helena collected up every grenade she could carry from the shelves, the luxury of the beautiful wall lost in her haste. Messily pocketing every cartridge she could carry that would fit her guns, she moved to one of the last windows and pushed the heavy dresser in front of it.

"Sera, get upstairs and hide Ashley," she ordered, taking one of the extra packages of ammo that didn't fit in her pockets. She emptied it into a pan on the stove.

"Agent Harper, what are you…"

She turned on the stove, ignoring him.

"Oh," Sera said, understanding. "Oh! Heading upstairs, yes!"

"Finally," Helena almost snarled. The front door rattled - they were already here! Hurrying up after Sera with her grenades and ammo, she backed the Spaniard away from the stairs. "In the corner!" she ordered, then threatened, "You let anything happen to her and I'll shove a plaga down your throat."

"My, my," Sera murmured in amusement as he escorted Ashley upstairs. "Your Agent Harper is a spicy one, eh? Don't worry, Ms. Graham. You're in my hands now."

Helpfully holding the door open for her, he ushered her into the closet. Ashley didn't even respond to the assurance, as opposed to the way she reacted icily to him earlier. She just ambled in and crouched down to hide. Sera shut the door.

Downstairs, the windows shattered and the barricades shook. When they fell, villagers began piling in through every crevasse they could.

"Come on, damn it," Helena willed, already starting to see them shuffle in near the stairs.

Many of them still carried their torches. Helena blasted one that had started to amble up the stairs. Behind her, the blockade over the window rattled before an arm punched through wood. Helena shot the exposed limb, hearing a satisfying thump down below on the first floor. It was starting to get busy down there. Helena whirled and shot another coming up the stairs.

_Any day now…_

Ashley squeaked from the closet as shots exploded downstairs in every which way and direction. With the frying pan finally melting through the outer casings, the heat reached the gunpowder and ignited it in a violent outburst of heat and pressure.

Helena heard no screams from these villagers, only dull thuds as they stumbled and fell. More kept coming, crawling in through the windows and doors, walking over each other like their injured fellows were nothing more than an obstacle. Helena had lost track of how many she'd killed or injured with that trick, but she didn't really want to stay to find out.

Taking one of her precious explosives, Helena silently mourned the loss of all the ammunition on that beautiful wall downstairs.

"Agent Harper!" Sera yelped, being throttled by a woman in rags.

Taking the cue, Helena shot the highest villager on the stairs and sent him flying back against his companions. She pulled the pin and threw the grenade after him.

"Agent Harper! Uno momento, por favor!" Sera exclaimed again, the villager's hands around his neck threatening to break his throat.

He ripped through her stomach pretty bad with his TMP, but when that failed to extract her, he finally, carefully shot up through one of her wrists to stop the strangling. Others started pouring in from window near him while he was distracted. As soon as he freed up, he aimed up his TMP, but an accidental headshot caused the organism - the plaga - to emerge from one of the villagers, just worsening the situation. Sera retrained his gun on the other oncoming villagers, but even so, the horde continued advancing steadily.

"Agent Harper, flash grenade!" Sera advised. "Use a flash grenade on them!"

Without delay, Helena whipped out a flash grenade and tossed it to the far end of his side. She shot another villager out the window just as the grenade went off, temporarily blinding them all. She blinked rapidly to rid the white spots over her eyes and turned her Hydra towards Sera to help, but as she did, the mob of villagers were already writhing on the floor and dying.

"What the hell?" she mumbled in confusion.

"The light, Agent Harper!" Sera explained, returning to his window safely. "They're weak to it!"

"Helena," Ashley panted, starting to sweat as she cracked open the closet door. "Is it getting hot in here?"

"The building's on fire," Helena calmly informed the girl. For now, it was incinerating villagers below, but with the spike of heat, the floor beneath their feet was starting to give. The plank Helena stood on creaked and broke in. "Come on," she said, grabbing Ashley's arm fast. She pulled her to the closest window, ignoring Sera's groans.

"We have to jump."

Ashley's eyes widened in horror.

"We're on the second floor!"

It was either that or burning up along with the house. Smoke was already starting to form and rise from below them, and other explosives from downstairs were going off. The building place would cave in any second now.

Helena pulled Ashley against her.

"I know how to land," she said, then glanced back at Sera. "Don't you dare die."

"I didn't know you cared about me so."

Helena completely ignored him. There was a ladder propped up against the window where villagers were climbing up mindlessly, hardly taking notice of the fire. She knocked it away from the ledge with a firm kick.

"Legs around me, Ashley," Helena ordered, stepping up into the window sill. The floor started to crack and char.

"Oh, my God," Ashley blurted out, wrapping around her, fear of heights kicking in. "Oh, my God, we're gonna die."

"Try to relax," Helena told her, but Ashley was anything but.

Sera jumped from another window just as the floor gave way under his feet. Ashley started to whimper, fresh tears in her eyes.

"Thank you, Helena, for trying," Ashley said, and it sounded like last words. "Thank you for coming for me."

Hugging Ashley tight to her, Helena made the jump. The house exploded behind her, fire following them out, but losing them on their trajectory down. Helena maneuvered them as much as she could for the short fall, aiming her shoulder to take the brunt of the landing. It would probably break, but she had little choice.

She landed shoulder-first into a villager with a torch, who squawked and fell over. She continued to roll over and off of him and down the hill a little more. Ashley cried out, but with Helena's shoulder taking the impact of the hit and fall, she assumed it was more out of fear than pain.

Helena's shoulder throbbed, but the drop had been cushioned by that villager moving just into place below her. She and Ashley came to a halt after somersaulting a little down the way. Ashley panted in fear, ending up on top of her.

"Helena!" Ashley exclaimed, trying to sit up on her and freaking out. "Helena, your shoulder!"

They had bigger problems. Helena lifted her Hydra and fired behind her. Ashley jumped in surprise, startled. The shot knocked one of the villagers off his feet for a moment.

"We have to go," she said, sitting up and trying to reach for Ashley, but the effort was excruciating and her arm didn't respond as it was supposed to. When she glanced down at it, she saw the limb had popped out of place during the fall. _Great._

"Helena-"

"Now, Ashley!" Helena barked, lifting her gun to fire behind her again. "We'll fix it later. Let's go."

Ashley squirmed as she wriggled off her lap and stood.

"Come on," she urged, pulling up to her feet and wincing. She fired one more shot into the nearest villagers. "This way," she said, going as fast as she could as the pain became excruciating.

* * *

 They left the burning building and the few villagers behind who had survived the blast. Helena couldn't be sure, but she thought she saw a figure darting away in the opposite direction of them.

She hoped it was Sera. That bastard better have come out okay.

Behind him, the bridge swayed into the cliff- wait, swayed? Helena blinked to make sure she was seeing it right, but sure enough, the bridge was out and there was at least forty villagers holding torches stuck on the other side. Had Sera done that? Helena couldn't imagine he would have had the time to take out the bridge. She squinted her eyes at the figure as it escaped.

They outdistanced the villagers easily enough, but they would not to be able to keep up the pace. Ashley was out of breath and looked about ready to faint.

"Ashley," Helena said, spotting two gates up ahead. "There. We'll stop up there."

They continued until they came upon both gates. Helena could hear noises from behind the left one, so she and Ashley opted for the other.

When they had opened it and slid just inside, Ashley collapsed against the wooden barricading walls, panting. She looked around until she found something.

"Helena, look. It's a release," the girl said, pointing up the wall. "If we can just get this rope…"

Helena raised her gun and shot it. The wooden fence they had hauled up before fell, trapping whatever villagers that were behind them on the other side of the wall.

"... or you could do that," Ashley mumbled in awe. Their eyes met then, and the girl's expression turned to worry. "Helena…" she said, crawling in front of her, looking as bad as Helena felt.

Her stomach hurt and ached in hunger. Her throat had gone dry. Even her shoulder wouldn't stop throbbing.

"Your shoulder looks horrible," Ashley said, her voice small.

"It's alright," Helena assured, not wanting to further worry the girl.

Ashley made a face, easily catching the weak lie. Helena lifted her other arm to feel it. It had popped pretty far out of place.

"Just need to…" she trailed off, trying to shove it and grunted when that resulted in nothing but more pain. "Push it back." She tried again with no luck. The angle was just too difficult to push it back by herself.

"Should I help?" Ashley asked, looking a little queasy at the thought, and Helena wasn't happy to admit she needed it.

"Just… push here," she directed, moving her hand over the spot. "Both hands," she guided, as Ashley tentatively braced her hands on her shoulder. "Real hard. Just push back."

Clearly exerting effort, Ashley squeaked in surprise and horror when the bone moved back and pushed into its socket.

"Oh, my God!" the girl blurted out. "Helena, are you okay? I'm so sorry! I-"

"Shh," she tiredly quieted the frantic girl, moving her sore arm in its socket to show she her it was okay. "It's better," she said, but Ashley still looked horrified. "Sit back," she urged, reaching for the girl's side.

Searching her person, she was relieved to find her canteen was still there, and alongside it, the little bottle of painkillers. She unscrewed the cap and slipped two out discreetly.

"We can take a breather."

Ashley sat next to her as she opened up her canteen for a sip. She slipped in the pills with her first swallow, managing to keep it from Ashley.

"Want a sip?" she offered.

"You saved my life," Ashley voiced, which she took as a 'not now.' Helena savored the cool refreshment on her tongue as Ashley scooted in as close as she possibly could to her and gave her a giant hug. "Thank you," the girl said, eyes welling a little. "Thank you for coming here to save me, Helena. I'm sorry I've been such a pain for you."

Helena scoffed through her teeth, then swallowed that savory gulp. "You're not nearly as much of a pain as my sister is," she reassured the girl, trying to inject some humor to ease Ashley's wired nerves.

Ashley was silent a moment, then asked, "... she makes you jump out of windows?"

Helena chuckled because she had actually done that for Deborah before, and it seemed like such a trivial thing now in their situation. Her laughter had Ashley smiling, and it lifted her spirits to see.

"Don't rule anything out. Deborah makes me do a lot of things I don't like."

"She's lucky to have you so close," Ashley claimed wistfully. She rested on Helena's good shoulder and her body rumbled contentedly like a purring kitten. "You're warm, Helena…"

Helena let the girl rest against her comfortably. If it made the girl feel better, she was all for it.

"Are all your missions like this?" Ashley asked, probably a little sleepy after everything. "Charge in, guns blazing, explosions rocking the earth with zombies or ganados or whatever, and you rescue the girls like me?"

"Not exactly," she corrected, closing her eyes to rest a moment. "This is kind of my first major covert operation."

"It is?" Ashley asked, sounding extremely surprised. "I wouldn't have been able to tell."

"I've been on smaller operations before. I used to be with the CIA, so I'm not completely new to covert ops, but this has been my first big assignment with the service now."

Ashley's nose scrunched up adorably.

"What about the other guys that came with you? Were they new operatives as well?"

"One of them was."

"They sent a bunch of newbie operatives to save me from a whole village that's been plagued?"

"The lead we had here wasn't strong," Helena explained. "Nobody expected us to find anything. It was supposed to be a dead end lead we just needed to check off our list, so they only sent three of us here." She opened her eyes and looked the girl's way. "Agent Kennedy, one of our best agents and the one with the most experience in bio-terrorism, was sent to track down your kidnapper. It's starting to look like he let witnesses see him on purpose to throw us off."

Ashley nodded once, then tucked her head in against Helena's shoulder.

"I'm glad it's you, Helena," she whispered, snuggling in as close as she could to her side and linked their arms together. "I feel safe with you here."

Helena offered her a small smile, then closed her eyes to savor the quiet moment while it lasted.

Eventually, Ashley asked, "Helena?"

"Hmm?"

"... do you think we're going to make it out of here?" she asked quietly. "I mean, do you really think so? We've still got a ways to go… with so many of them in the way. What if the machine doesn't even work?" She clung tight around Helena's arm, voice a little tight with fear. "I don't want to become one of them… some shell for a parasite."

"You won't," Helena told her resolutely. "I'm going to find the machine Sera made, and it's going to work. I'll get you out of here and get you home. Even if Sera doesn't come back, we'll find it. You're going to be okay, Ashley."

"I don't know," Ashley admitted, sounding troubled and small. "I guess you'll protect me, right?"

"Of course, that's my job."

"Well, you've done amazing so far," Ashley gushed a little. "You're really good at making me comfortable." It was quiet for a moment after she said it, but not for long. "So... your sister's a handful, huh?"

"You have no idea," Helena admitted, eyes still closed.

Ashley was being particularly talkative, but she didn't mind it, not if it kept the girl's mind off their current situation and more dire things.

"She's around your age, actually. It's just the two of us at home." Helena quieted then. Thinking about Deborah was hard. Who would take care of her sister if she didn't come back home?

"Ohh," Ashley said in understanding. "Just the two of you? She must be worried sick."

Helena opened her eyes when she felt Ashley squeezing around her stomach again. If only she and Deborah got along so well, she thought with an inward sigh. Deborah certainly had never been this clingy with her. She reached for her back pocket.

"I need to report in," Helena said, gently easing Ashley up off her shoulder. She ignored the jolt of pain the simple movement caused her as she dialed in again.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Ashley asked, having caught the wince. "You're not, are you?"

"Helena," Hunnigan's relieved face filled the screen, saving Helena from answering. "You're okay, thank God. Have you reached the extraction point?"

"Not yet," she said, then skipped right to the bad news. "Hunnigan, call the lab-"

"Helena's hurt!" Ashley cut in, grabbing Helena's hand and turning the handheld towards her. "We had to jump out a window and she landed badly on her shoulder."

"What?" Hunnigan gasped, wide eyes turning to Helena. "Why did you jump out the window?"

"She set the first floor on fire because the villagers were swarming us," Ashley unhelpfully answered.

"What? Helena!"

Helena cringed, all too familiar with the tone. She cast Ashley a sour look.

Tattle, she childishly thought, but had the sense not to say it out loud.

Easing Ashley's fingers off her wrist, she faced Hunnigan, barely keeping from withering under the older woman's glare.

"The villagers caught the place on fire, not me. I had to make a quick exit."

"Helena."

"Ashley's alright," she claimed, hoping it would appease Hunnigan.

"That's good, Helena. And you? Are you okay?"

"I'm fi-" she started to say, only for Ashley to cut her off again.

"She dislocated her shoulder! I… I had to push it back into place. She's really hurt, Hunnigan. I think I did something wrong."

She placed her hand on Ashley's, which found its way on her wrist again.

"I'm fine, Ashley. Really," she said, then looked at Hunnigan's unconvinced face and repeated. "Really. Hunnigan, I'm sending you a lot of data. We ran into Luis Sera and he gave us information on the organism being utilized by the Los Illuminados. Call the lab and get them started on building the machine included in the files. Ashley and I have been infected with the plaga. If Sera doesn't come through, that machine is the only way of getting these things out of our bodies."

Hunnigan's shock was evident, but she was quick to regain her composure.

"Alright, Helena. I'll have the lab working right away. You should hurry to the tower."

"Is… is my father there?" Ashley asked shyly then. "I want to talk to him."

Hunnigan frowned, understanding all too well why the girl was asking for her father.

"He's not here right now, Ashley, I'm sorry. He'll be around by the time you reach the tower. I'll be sure to call."

"Okay," Ashley whispered, leaning like dead weight against Helena.

"Come on," she urged softly, starting to stand.

They headed to the door, Ashley quietly trailing behind her, gingerly grasping her hand.

* * *

The valley split down the middle where a single, barren passageway made of dirt led through. No plants grew on the surrounding cliff walls that rose up about thirty feet around them. It was all just dead, which felt oddly fitting for this place. Helena walked alongside Ashley, holding the girl's hand as Ashley looked up at the cliffs on either side of them.

"Sure is big," Ashley noted quietly, perhaps a bit intimidated by the solitary road that seemed deserted of all life. "Do you think they used to have a waterway through here?"

"It's possible."

A little ways ahead after a few, gradual turns, Helena could see a wooden barricade with a door, erected over the entire pathway. She wondered what it was for.

Something tried to answer her.

"What is that?" Ashley gasped as the ground shook with a startling, thunderous quaking that she felt through her legs. Ashley's face fell fast as she barely managed to keep on her feet only by gripping on to Helena for support. "Helena, what is that? It feels like an earthquake!"

If only they could be so lucky. Helena didn't think so.

"Come on!"

Grabbing Ashley's hand, Helena took off down the dirt path.

She had heard of BOWs being big before, and had seen a couple of pictures from old case files. Meeting one in combat was definitely something she could do without, but as always, reality seemed to be working against her.

As she ran with Ashley to the large, wooden structure with a small, centrally placed door ahead, the cliffside to their left shook and sent tremors all the way into the valley. Rocks, dust and dirt flew from overhead.

From the dust cloud, a filthy, gray and brown hulking figure leapt forth and threatened to collapse the whole valley as it descended. The giant took up the entire pathway with its girth and stood as tall as the cliffs around it. Disturbingly human in shape besides color, it had arms three times the size of Helena. It roared and nearly made her ears bleed.

"What is that?!" Ashley cried out in panic.

"Run to that door!" Helena pointed and ordered, pulling out the TMP she had taken from the merchant.

She open fired on the beast before it had even finished its roar. The giant's dark, demonic eyes descended on her. It walked right on through the bullets as if they were a light drizzle of rain, completely unfazed. She raised the TMP to aim at his head when Ashley shouted out again.

"Helena, look!"

She averted her eyes for only a moment, stepping back slowly as the giant stomped towards them. Ashley had stopped at the door and was pointing. Helena followed her finger to see a wooden platform above that supported a giant boulder precariously balanced on top. She adjusted her fire to shoot the platform as the large BOW stepped in closer.

Closer. Too close.

The giant had just started to swoop down its massive hand at her when the old wood under the boulder collapsed. She turned and dove out of the way as the it fell. Fingers narrowly missed her back, followed by the crack of the huge boulder as it broke in half over the giant's head. She sprinted to the gate, and as she pulled closer, she realized why Ashley hadn't run through it yet.

The wood was chained with dead bolts, three across the door.

"The hell," she groaned when she reached the door where Ashley futilely pulled on them. Helena gently, but insistently pushed her aside upon arrival. "Duck down. This is going to ricochet."

Ashley bent to her knees behind her, shaking. Helena regretted not using a softer tone, but they had no time here. She aimed her TMP at the chain from an angle to prevent the bullets from deflecting back their way at all. She emptied four shots into the chain, bullets ricocheting the opposite way and embedding into the cliff. She saw her shots had made a couple of dents, but the chains showed no sign of breaking.

"Goddamnit!"

Behind them, the large BOW reared up from under the rubble and clumsily pulled to its feet.

In a rush, Helena backed up a few steps to plow shoulder-first into the door. Her injured shoulder exploded in pain and she saw stars, but she also fell through the door.

"Helena!" Ashley squeaked, at her side immediately on the other side of the door, helping to pull her up. "You just broke through chains with your injured shoulder!"

"They were rusty."

"My God…" Ashley gaped, her awe most likely had to do with the giant forcefully shoving through rubble after them.

"Go!" Helena ordered, swallowing the blinding pain and ignoring the dark spots at the corners of her vision.

She pulled out a flash grenade from Sera's bag as the giant gained ground on them. Whipping around in a full turn without stopping, she threw the grenade into its face. The light blinded and injured it. It howled in pain and actually stopped to cover its eyes. Helena and Ashley scurried ahead, making good headway until they hit another chained door.

"Aghh!" Helena growled, not stopping for it and braced for impact.

"Not your injured- shoulder," Ashley finished as the aching pain crippled her all over again.

Helena fell with the door once more, but graciously, adrenaline ate up the burning desire to faint faster this time. Looking back to the giant following them, she pulled her only spare TMP clip and snapped it in as the angry BOW finally gained its bearings again. She lifted the gun with her good arm and waited for the monster to come up under another strategically-placed boulder that she wasn't complaining about.

"Helena, come on!" Ashley urged, tugging at her frantically.

She got up and let loose a spray of bullets into the injured BOW before Ashley managed to pull her along. They only went a short distance before coming upon another chained door. She started to charge it.

"Helena, no!" Ashley sputtered. "Don't!"

The ground shook. The giant had recovered quicker this time, and it was only an arm's length behind them.

"Ashley!" she shouted as the giant reached for the girl.

She turned just as those thick fingers wrapped around the girl's whole body and picked her up. Ashley's scream echoed throughout the valley. Helena raised her gun, but at this angle, she was at equal risk of shooting Ashley. She lowered it to spatter its legs with bullets and frantically fumbled with her belt for another flash grenade.

"Helena!" the girl squeaked as his fist appeared to tighten around her.

Ashley yelped again, and Helena looked up fast to see the giant suddenly release her companion and clutched its hand with a grunt of pain. Ashley started to fall.

"Shit!" she swore, pure instinct driving her to dive for Ashley within the second that it happened.

They collided mid-air, and Helena wrapped the girl up in her arms before she hit the ground and rolled. Ashley looked extremely disoriented, but they had no time to dawdle as the large BOW now clumsily lumbered around, cradling its hand and yowling. She barely managed to swerve out of the way as its massive foot landed nearby. She struggled to her feet and ran a few yards back to a safe distance before putting the misty-eyed Ashley back on her feet again.

"Go!" she barked, pointing her companion to the other direction.

"Helena, his back!" Ashley said instead, wide eyes on the giant's back, an expression of utter horror and disgust on her face.

Helena saw why. Erupting through the mottled, gray flesh and splitting open his back was suitably large plaga, pale, peach tentacles grew around its thick, middle cluster that heaved and spasmed grotesquely.

"Oh, my God, what is that? Is that the plaga?" Ashley cried out, watching the deformity unnaturally spasm before the giant turned to face them.

"Ashley, get back!" Helena shouted, flash grenade finally in hand.

She pulled her combat knife out as Ashley hurried out of the way. She threw the flash grenade, which exploded right between giant's eyes. Using its pain and temporary blindness as her cover, she ran forward, jumped onto its bent knee and scrambled up its arm to reach its massive shoulder and back. She unexpectedly found a thin, slender arrow sticking through the middle of the giant plaga.

 _Ada,_ she thought with a grunt of dissatisfaction. She must have been the reason the beast had released Ashley.

As tentacles swarmed her, Helena gripped the knife firmly and drove it down as hard as she could through the thickest area, dragging the blade down with all her strength.

The large BOW roared and reached up for her with both hands as she ripped through it again, this time horizontally, cutting a full half of the plaga off. Blood and that yellow discharge spewed everywhere, half blinding her, but the hands that had been reaching for her suddenly dropped. The giant stilled, and then started to fall.

Helena dug her knife in deeply to ground herself as five tons of flesh fell. It hit the ground heavily, a cloud of dust rising around it. She finally freed her knife and wiped her face off, doing very little to do away with the filth and blood she was covered in.

Great. Something else for Ms. Wong to sneer at should they see each other again.

She tore out the arrow to inspect that it was truly Ms. Wong's, then discarded it, muttering darkly as she slid off the giant's carcass.

"Helena?" a frail voice called. Ashley's head popped out from around the corner, eyes growing wide the moment she saw her. "Helena! Are you okay? You're covered in blood!"

Her demeanor softening for the girl as adrenaline ebbed away and a white-hot pain flared up in her shoulder, Helena tried to smile for Ashley to appear somewhat less intimidating with all the guts soaking through her clothes.

"I'm okay, it's not mine. Are you alright, Ashley? I'm sorry I let him get you."

"It's okay," Ashley said with a brave, but distant smile back, probably too distracted by the gore as she gazed upon her. "You caught me after."

"Are you hurt?" Helena pressed, and Ashley finally tore her eyes away to glance down at her stomach.

"A little," she admitted unwillingly, probably not wanting to worry Helena.

"Did he break any ribs?"

"I don't- "

"Let me check," Helena insisted, concerned, and wiped off her hands on her pants before kneeling in front of the girl. Ashley's cheeks went bright red the moment she pressed her fingers to her stomach under the lower right side of her shirt. Not a good sign. "Does that hurt?"

"No, um-" Ashley stammered, then gave up the fib. "I mean, yes! A little bit…" she squeaked, her cheeks only getting redder. Helena checked the other side, prodding gently, then moved up to make sure nothing near the lungs had been damaged. "Oh…um..." Ashley breathed, almost crimson and near tears.

"Nothing feels broken," Helena noted, touching one more spot just to be sure. "Probably fractured. Tell me if the pain gets worse-"

"Am I interrupting?" a jovial voice broke in.

Helena gently gripped Ashley around the belly and pulled her in protectively as she turned.

"Ada," she said, almost accusingly as the woman popped up out of nowhere to Helena's left.

"Ada?" the woman echoed, amused as ever. "No more Ms. Wong, Agent Harper?"

"What are you doing here?" she asked, immediately put on the defensive.

Ada had the most uncanny ability of showing up at these opportune moments; Helena didn't trust the coincidence at all.

"I suppose we're on a first name basis now, aren't we? Well, Helena, if you're done fondling your charge, I would suggest we move onward."

"Fondling!" Helena released Ashley from her arms to glare at Ada accusingly. "You're sick!"

"Ashley doesn't think so," Ada replied with a cool smile.

"What do you want?" she snapped, beyond agitated with this woman. She didn't like how casually Ada had said Ashley's name.

"Want? Don't be greedy, Helena," Ada teased. "I'm just passing by. It seems we're going the same way."

Ada made her way to the next set of chained up doors and pulled a pencil-like metal rod from somewhere Helena couldn't see. In another second, the metal shot out a thin, red light that melted the steel of the chains.

"That's Ada Wong?" Ashley asked quietly as Helena urged her along after the woman in red, who stored the laser… in her open shirt top.

To think she complained about dirt when she exposed her breasts like that. Unbelievable.

"Yeah," Helena replied to the girl, almost viciously, then softened her tone for Ashley. "She's dangerous. I don't know what she's doing here or why she's helping us."

"Coming along?" Ada echoed back to them, reaching a final set of double doors. "You never know what's behind closed doors."

"I'll give you closed doors," Helena muttered, not going to let Ada out of her sight so easily again. Not without some answers this time. She hurried Ashley along to catch up.

* * *

The doors opened up and they came upon the end of the valley passageway at last. To the right sat an old, creaky set of stairs that lead to a structure that had probably been a nice trellis at some point, but without maintenance for some time, it had lost its shine.

They passed a deserted shack that had seen better days and continued on an uphill track towards another set of double doors. A lantern hung by these ones, and another path branched somewhere off to the side where Helena could hear machinery in the distance. They ignored it and followed the dirty, dreary path to the doors.

"How's your shoulder?" Ada asked easily, in that annoying, all-knowing way of hers.

"It's none of your business."

"I've never seen someone charge through chained doors before," Ada said, then as an afterthought, added, "like some kind of bull."

"How is your shoulder?" Ashley asked her in a softer tone, with more care and concern in her voice.

"It's okay," Helena assured the sweeter one of the two, even though her shoulder did flared with pain.

She couldn't let it affect her performance, not with Ashley in tow and Deborah at home. There would be time for healing later. She just had to put up with it for now and avoid ramming through any more doors if she could.

"If you say so," Ada murmured dismissively, seeming to know better.

Helena moved gingerly. Not long ago her shoulder had been dislocated, her arm hanging awkwardly out of its socket when they had escaped the swarm at the merchant's cabin. Her mind zipped back to the broken bridge with trapped villagers on the other side and the figure she had hoped was Sera fleeing unharmed.

"You've been watching since the log cabin, haven't you?" she accused the woman.

"What makes you think that?"

"Why?" she angrily demanded. "Why are you following me?"

Ada stopped suddenly in the middle of their dirt path and held up a hand to stop Helena as well. She made a face when Helena walked into it and withdrew her hand, about to prepare another comment about her filth, no doubt.

"What is it?" Helena demanded.

"We're not alone," Ada answered mysteriously.

Just feet away from another giant set of wooden doors, Helena felt it, too. She turned her head to the right, and in the flash of a second, she was shoved back hard and landed on her tailbone with a wince. Before her stood an even greater problem.

At least seven feet tall, the village chief had picked Ada up off the ground by the throat, much of the same way he had caught Helena before. He had not pushed her, Helena realized, Ada had.

"American," he muttered, glowering with his one eye.

Ada stuck him in the gut with a knife. He barely even flinched. Helena pulled out her Hydra and fired into the back of his knees, crippling him as she had hoped for. He dropped to his knees, but didn't drop Ada, who was losing strength, fast.

Helena scrambled to her feet and ran for her. She body-slammed the woman, tackling her out of the chief's weakened grasp. Ada skidded on her back until they had just reached the door, coughing as air rushed back into her lungs.

"Ugh," Ada managed between coughs. If Helena had expected a thank you, she would have been disappointed. "You're filthy!" Ada gagged and pushed up at her. "Off! Get off!"

Not wasting a moment to snap back at the woman, Helena rolled off her, only because she'd been choking, definitely not for her rude request. She turned and fired her Hydra once more into the chief's face before she had to reload. When that proved to do nothing more than stagger him for half a moment, she grunted in annoyance, unstrapped the RPG from her back and took aim at his bulky chest. He had just started to stand up again when she fired.

The rocket was on target, and amid the explosion, the last that was heard from the chief was a mangled howl.

With the chief dealt with, Helena turned back to Ada, who was looking at her smudged shirt like it had grown a plaga.

"Your filth is all over me!"

"Next time, I'll just let him strangle you," Helena growled at her, then looked up, suddenly remembering her second companion. "Ashley? Ashley!"

"I'm here." Ashley poked her head out of a barrel. "I was hiding."

Helena breathed a sigh of relief. It didn't last long.

Across the dirt road where Helena had blasted the village chief, a roar erupted. Out of the flaming ashes, a long, fleshy plaga erupted from his reanimated corpse, much worse than any others she'd seen. Instead of erupting from the neck, this plaga grew out from the abdomen, split his body in two and elongated disturbingly like a centipede with ridges and bone grooves, wrapped around a pale, fleshy plaga connecting the upper and lower halves of his body. Seven feet became eleven, then twelve on the ground, until it was unseemly for him to stand at all, towering so.

His upper half was not spared from the gruesome transformation. His back erupted with scissoring appendages, sharp as razors for cutting. Fingernails became spikes as sharp as any knives, and that horrible, one-eyed face loomed down at them.

"Oh, gross!" Ashley said, then ducked back into her barrel.

"If only you saved the rocket," Ada sighed as he transformed.

"How the hell was I supposed to know!" Helena exclaimed, pulling out her TMP again to shower him in a hail of bullets as she stood. "Fuck," she cursed when they proved almost completely ineffectual. The mutated chief pulled up to his feet. She turned to the woman beside her who was carefully dipping the tip of an arrow into a compact jar. "Do you have any grenades?" she asked in aggravation.

"I've got arrows. Now, go distract him, you savage, like you did with the with the giant," Ada said, sending her off with a casual pat on the butt.

Helena stiffened, her face instantly turning red. She stared at Ada, who simply looked at her expectantly, as if to say, _well? What are you waiting for?_

Awkwardly, she took off to mislead their new foe. She emptied another clip of bullets while approaching, then threw the TMP at him when it was out. He snarled when it hit his cheek and bounced off. Helena dropped just in time to narrowly avoid a swipe that would have taken her head off.

Immediately following, she rolled quickly and sharp incisors pierced the ground where her stomach had just been. With one incisor stuck in the ground, he grabbed at her shirt with a hand. Hard-tipped claws prickled her chest. He brought the other razor-sharp clipper down, which only barely missed her because Helena had kicked his middle, plaga appendage and threw the shot off.

"You're doing great," Ada complimented calmly, slowly lifting her dipped arrow to load. "Keep it up."

Helena kicked the plaga again and grabbed his arm in an attempt to break it, but the limb was too solid. Before she could kick again, a slender arrow effortlessly slid into the spot her foot had just been, right through the centipede's stomach.

"Hey!" Helena barked, "Watch it! Shoot him in the face!"

But as she said it, something curious happened around that wound area that made the creature roar in protest and rip out both his incisors from the ground in pain. In the middle of his elongated plaga, a hole around the slim arrow sizzled open in just the one spot. The arrow actually fell out as the hole expanded. She looked at the arrow on the ground as he reared back in pain.

"Don't touch that," Ada said, coolly dipping another arrowhead. "It's acid."

Having no time to ponder over these electric and acid arrows, Helena rolled back out of reach, making a grab for her hip holster as she did. By the time she somersaulted upright into a kneel, her loaded Picador had already launched two shots into his shoulder.

Livid, his attention turned back to her again. Helena rolled again as claws came at her, starting the get from all the tumbling. Landing on the other side of his legs, she kicked out his injured knees. A soft whizz of another arrow preempted the acrid smell of burning plaga as the small hole in his middle section opened wider again.

Then, she realized what Ada was trying to do.

"Damn it, you could have said something!" she yelled, angrily aiming her Picador for his midsection.

"And let you miss rolling around in the mud?"

"I should kick him to you," Helena sputtered an empty threat, firing round after round at the growing wound in the skinny middle section of the plaga.

"Not if you don't want an acid arrow in the ass, you won't."

Helena grunted, but by the time he recovered again, Ada had shot and placed that third acid arrow into the small section remaining. His entire upper half fell off, severed, right next to her. She yelped inelegantly when it continued to move and grabbed for her. Swearing, she fired at his face as his claws reared back for her. Something small was thrown, bouncing over before a blinding flash of light engulfed them all.

"Fuck, woman!" she cried, hands going over her eyes, seeing white even after she had covered them. "You did have a flash grenade!"

Ada tutted somewhere above her.

"You should watch your language in front of your charge."

"Is he dead?" Ashley's curious voice ventured, probably peeping from her barrel again. "Oh, eww! Helena, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Helena said, sitting up.

Although she still couldn't really see anything yet, she didn't want to worry Ashley over it. Footsteps padded over to her. Helena blinked, hoping to speed the recovery. Faint outlines registered slowly before a dark figure moved before her. Helena half jumped as a hand touched her shoulder.

"It's just me," Ashley's sweet voice assured. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Helena blinked and was glad when her sight started to come back very gradually.

"Yeah…" she mumbled, then noticed the burnt corpse beside her with an arrow through its head. She grimaced, eyes flicking back to Ada, who stood in front of the large, wooden doors.

"A retinal scanner…" Ada murmured over there, seeming to be talking to herself. She seemed annoyingly amused again as her eyes cast back in her direction. "I wonder which one eye it needs to open this door."

"What are you going on about?"

"Oh, just making a wild guess," Ada said, shrugging. "While you're down there, be a dear and take his eye."

Ashley paled a shade.

"What?"

"For the retinal scan," Ada replied simply, already turned away again to observe the door.

Ashley looked ready to faint at the notion.

"Can't you just break through it with your laser?"

"And risk setting off an alarm?" Ada wouldn't stop smiling like that, and it half infuriated Helena.

She hated the woman's demeanor, but she knew Ada was right. They couldn't risk setting off something that would alert the rest of the cult leader.

"Come, Ashley," Ada called the girl over, "leave the dirty work to Helena."

Ashley looked indecisive about leaving her. Helena nodded her off towards Ada.

"I'll be right there," she assured the girl.

"Join us when you're done, Helena."

Silently cursing Ada to hell, Helena began the gruesome task. She reached down for the chief's burned, ugly face, careful to avoid the acid arrow. She cautiously lowered the edge of her combat knife to the bottom of his eyelid and scraped under it with the thin blade. She wedged it in around the side and turned the blade for leverage against the wooden substitute. It popped a moment later with a sickening squelch of the flesh. Helena was tempted to toss it to Ada, but she couldn't risk having the woman discard it out of disgust.

"Do you have a boyfriend back at home?" Ada was asking a startled Ashley. "Or a girlfriend?"

Ashley blushed bright red and started to stutter a response. Ada would go as far as embarrassing a girl to tease her. Unbelievable.

"Leave her alone," Helena muttered, snagging Ashley back from Ada and holding up the eye before the retinal scanner.

Ashley aimed her eyes at the floor. Helena rubbed her arm to comfort her. As soon as the scan was done, she tossed the eye at Ada and grabbed the first of her guns to reload.

"Ugh," Ada groaned, sidestepping it easily enough, but watched it roll away to be sure. "You're revolting."

Helena was more than happy to sneer back at the woman before stepping through the door.

* * *

Helena loaded her Hydra back up as a new, scenic castle came into view on the left. Surrounded by a dirty moat of water and black clouds overhead, the two torches over the drawbridge entrance did little to brighten the sight of it. Worse, a heavy fog permeated everything, and combined with the dark surroundings and dead tree branches hanging out around the exterior, it gave the castle gave a terrifying atmosphere.

"Is that where we're going?" Ashley asked, sounding scared.

"No," Helena told the girl, shaking her head to remove the intimidating notion from her as quick as possible. "Don't worry, Ashley. We're taking the road straight out of here to the extraction point."

"So you say," Ada quipped from the side, "but we have company."

"What?" Helena barked, in the middle of reloading her Picador when Ada floated up to a tree with her grappling gun. "Ada!"

"That's the American!" someone ahead shouted in Spanish. "Kill her!"

Helena's attention quickly turning, she advanced on ahead with a, "Stay back," to Ashley, who took a deep breath and nodded.

She started shooting the two she could see just ahead, but the roar of an engine soon turned her attention another way. Behind them, a giant truck roared to life, its lights half blinding her sensitive eyes. Completely ignoring his own people, he thoughtlessly ran them over.

Cursing, Helena shot at the driver through the windshield, but he kept swerving, and she couldn't tell if it was intentional or not, but he managed to avoid most of her bullets. The shots that connected split his head open, and unluckily enough, drew out the plaga.

"Goddamnit," Helena growled, backing up from the car.

A well-placed arrow whizzed through the air and pierced a tire. His next swerve went crazy into the stone guardrail and sent the whole truck sideways, crashing over between the two low-risen walls in the pathway.

There in the tree, comfortably situated, Ada smiled.

"You're welcome," she purred, cocky as ever.

Helena just growled.

"Helena!" Ashley shouted, abandoning her back post to rush forward. "They're coming! There's so many of them!"

Hearing an angry chorus, Helena turned and saw a mob of villagers coming up from the path they had just abandoned.

"Damn it, more of them!"

"Looks like you made them angry when you killed the village chief," Ada said like she knew it for a fact.

"Shut up and get down here!" Helena snapped, grabbing Ashley's hand to help her climb over the truck in the way. By the time they reached the other side of it, Ada flipped down from the tree gracefully and landed on her feet like a dove. It just annoyed Helena even more that she could do that so admirably. "Let's go!"

"There's no reason to be rude," Ada admonished, keeping the pace that Helena set for Ashley without even an ounce of effort. They padded up a stone walkway with low sides before Ada spoke again. "We have more company."

Completely blocking the path before them, what seemed like the rest of the village stood with torches raised. As soon as one saw them, the crowd roared and charged.

"What do we do?" Ashley asked in panic, looking behind them where villagers piled over the truck after them.

"Across the drawbridge!"

"Right where you didn't want to go," Ada remarked, shaking her head as they turned onto the wooden platform, infuriatingly still teasing in the face of life and death.

"Shut up and grab that crank!" Helena ordered, already racing to the first one and pulling with all her strength.

"This?" Ada shuddered and didn't grab it. "Ugh. Any of those filthy things could have touched it."

"You're wearing gloves!" Helena snapped, gritting her teeth as she tried to power it alone with her aching shoulder.

A moment later, an explosion rocked the ground as fire engulfed the middle of the bridge in a plume of smoke. A few villagers fell down into the moat, and in seconds, the bridge was no longer a problem to lift at all.

"There," Ada offered, haughty and all-knowing as always. "I helped."

"Great," Helena mumbled, hardly impressed, "now we're stuck in this castle."


	3. The Castle

Just through the towering double doors at the foot of the drawbridge, the first interior of the castle rose high with a stone stairway on the far wall that, Helena supposed, would take them to the entrance. A few dead trees surrounded what looked to be a small courtyard, but Helena's eyes were drawn towards a bright blue flame coming from a small outbuilding on her right.

 _You've got to be kidding me,_ she thought, quickly reaching for her Hydra.

"I wouldn't do that," Ada said, gently grasping her wrist to stop her. "If he didn't die the first two times, I doubt it'll be any different now."

"How do you even know it's the same person?" Helena retorted, jerking her arm a little, but Ada's grip on her wrist tightened.

"Because," Ada murmured, her voice taking on that almost musical tone, "it looks like he's expecting you."

Helena stopped struggling, finally understanding that Ada was warning her. From the small window of the outbuilding, she saw the laser sight of a gun aimed at her chest. Had she drawn her weapon, she would have likely gotten shot.

Ada just saved her life. Again.

Letting Ada pull her hand away from her Hydra, Helena raised her other hand as she made sure she was standing between Ashley and a possible gunshot. The man inside the outbuilding lowered his weapon and waved at them.

"Come on over, stranger!" he said, that cheerful, gravelly voice all too familiar.

Helena looked at Ada, wondering if the woman had anything else planned.

"You heard him," Ada said with her usual smile and shrug.

They entered the outbuilding, Helena staying in front of Ashley the whole time. The man was still armed, this time with a Striker shotgun instead of a rifle, which he aimed at Helena in particular.

"Forgive my rudeness, stranger, but you're proving to be a very... difficult client. I just can't have you shooting me and running off with my merchandise again. It's very bad for business, very bad."

Ada was right, it was the same merchant. How was he still alive? How did he get here?

"What do you want?" Helena asked, voicing the most pressing, urgent concern.

The merchant chuckled.

"The question, stranger, is what do you want? Look around!" he exclaimed, gesturing at the guns hanging on the wall and the boxes of grenades and ammunition at his feet. "See anything that interests you, stranger?"

Helena only spared his inventory a glance, not wanting to keep her eyes off him for long. His supplies were limited, less than half of what he had in the cabin. No RPG, she noted, likely sold to Ramon Salazar, but how many did he have to sell? Interestingly, he had a stock of flash grenades, something she expected to be bought out given the plaga's weakness to it.

"That rifle may come in handy," Ada remarked, unnervingly at ease.

Helena scoffed.

"Like you'd touch it."

"I'm not the one who needs it," Ada teased, smirking.

"Ahh, yes, the .233 caliber semi-automatic," the merchant said, putting down his shotgun to fetch the sniper rifle from the wall. "The carry handle comes with a built in scope, but for an additional fee, I can replace it with a low profile rail scope."

"I probably can't afford it," Helena mumbled, still guarded.

"No cash?" the merchant said, not deterred. "How about we barter then, stranger? Jewels, treasures, something... shiny?"

"I said I-" Helena started growl, then stopped when Ashley grasped her arm.

"Helena, maybe he'll take this," the girl whispered, placing something in her hand. "I found it in your jacket."

Helena looked at her hand to see that she now held the ruby she found from the butcher in the village. She had completely forgotten about it, she couldn't even remember why she took it.

Ada was amused, the look on her face saying, _I know you stole that and I approve._

"Ahh," the merchant droned, his eyes widening in awe, his hands eagerly reaching for it. "I'll take it, stranger. It's not nearly enough, but as a gesture of good faith, I'll trade the rifle and its scope for the ruby."

"What's the catch?" Helena asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

"No catch, stranger!" the man said, sounding more desperate. "Only that we continue a friendly relationship. I'll even include the flash grenades you've been eyeing."

"Just promise not to shoot him again," Ada chimed, laughing softly. "Sounds like a fair deal."

"I can do that," Helena said, her tone a touch defensive as she scowled at Ada's knowing look.

She wasn't overjoyed, but the merchant's offer was generous. She lifted the ruby, watching the merchant's gleaming eyes on it, then finally put it on the table.

"Fine," she said, "for the gun, scope and grenades."

The ruby disappeared in an instant, somewhere into the merchant's cloak.

"Happy to do business, stranger! Let me fix up your new scope, here," he exclaimed excitedly, then proceeded to professionally inspect the weapon, dismantling the front to hook on the new scope. "Help yourself to the grenades, there."

Helena went to retrieve the flash grenades, clearing her throat when she felt an itch.

In less than five minutes, Helena had a brand new sniper rifle strapped to her back, half a dozen more flash grenades, and the merchant was bidding them goodbye with a hearty chuckle.

"It better not blow up in my hands," she muttered darkly as they were leaving.

"That RPG worked just fine, didn't it?" Ada asked with that faint amusement. "You're just grumpy you had to pay for it and couldn't take everything else."

Helena cast her a look, but before she could speak, she felt another itch in her throat, more persistent than the last. She turned into her arm as she coughed, then coughed again and again, so much she had to stop moving to brace herself. She tasted something warm in her mouth, but couldn't identify it until she finally stopped.

Panting, she swallowed thickly and only then saw the blood, flecks of it staining her black sleeve.

"Helena!" Ashley cried, little arms wrapping around her waist at the front in fright. "You're… you're already coughing blood," she stammered, looking horrified. "I'm sorry! This happened to you because of me, I'm so sorry."

It had to have been days ago when Ashley was infected, else Saddler and his cult wouldn't have had a reason to keep her.

 _Then why am I already coughing blood?_ Helena thought.

It was troubling, but she didn't want to worry Ashley.

"Hey," she said softly, rubbing the girl's back soothingly, "this isn't your fault, Ashley. You didn't do this to me."

"I'm still sorry," Ashley whimpered, still clinging to her.

When Helena lifted her head again, it was to see Ada looking at her bloody sleeve. The woman didn't say anything, but she had the most serious expression Helena had seen on her yet. Then Ada met her eyes, just for a moment before turning away.

* * *

"Stay between us, Ashley," Helena told the girl as they headed out. "I'm taking point."

"Then I suppose I'm taking the rear," Ada said, surprisingly agreeable, but the smirk on her face was telling. "At least the view is nice," came the belated quip.

"Leave Ashley alone," Helena snapped, rounding the platform on the stairs to a door.

"What makes you think I was talking about Ashley?"

Helena blushed, cursing how automatic it was becoming around the woman. She kept looking ahead, refusing to give Ada the satisfaction of seeing her face.

"Isn't she cute?" Ada cooed, and Helena couldn't tell if she was talking to Ashley or just talking to herself again.

Ignoring it, Helena pushed through the door, finding a stone pathway. They followed, rounding a corner that opened up to a much larger view of the castle. Winding stairs lead up to further platforms and stone ridges that lined the castle walls. Three floors above, there was a circular platform towering high near a set of twin doors.

Helena heard voices, monotonous whispers in a continuous stream. A chill ran down her spine. Was this the chanting Ashley talked about?

She could see certain members patrolling the higher walls, but they weren't like the villager folk. Instead of shabby rags and crude tools, these men were dressed in black robes and were armed with maces and morning stars, actual weapons instead of makeshift ones. Their faces were clean and startlingly, unnaturally white, as were their hands, from what she could see.

"Well, they sure like their stairs."

Helena ignored Ada, continuing to assess the situation.

"Looks like they have armed guards on every level," she noted. "We can only go around, so we have to go through all of them and..." she trailed off when she heard a sound and glanced back to see Ada with her arm extended, the long cord of her grappling tool shot out halfway across the platform to the towering, circular stone way above. "What are you-"

"See you at the top."

"Ada!" Helena barked, lunging just as the woman started to speed away and catching nothing but air. "Ada!"

"Helena," Ashley whispered urgently, tugging at her shirt, "I think they see us now."

Cursing, Helena whipped out her new, semi-automatic sniper rifle and kept Ashley back in cover far behind her. She took aim at one of the men who rushed to a catapult she had thought was just a prop between the stone ridges.

 _Of course not_ , she thought, blowing off his head.

"Um… Helena?" Ashley called in a small voice.

"Stay back against the wall," she said, holding out a hand in front of Ashley to keep her in cover as a large flaming projectile crashed into stone a few feet to their left, cracking it.

Ashley gasped, eyes growing wide at the crater.

"Was that a flaming boulder?"

Helena poked her head around the corner again and quickly fired, stopping the zealot from reloading the catapult. He fell down from the one shot and didn't get back up.

 _Good rifle,_ she thought, starting to believe the merchant really did give her a great deal.

"We'll be fine," she told Ashley. "Just stay close to me."

"Are we going out there?" the girl asked, horrified.

Before she could reply, another boulder smashed into the wall they were hiding behind. She took Ashley's hand and pulled her out of the way only a second before a giant slab of stone fell, landing where the girl had been.

Ashley squeaked, cowering behind her. She wasted no time, whipping around with the sniper and shooting the man who had hidden from her, hitting him right through the eye.

 _Bastard,_ she cursed him, then petulantly thought, _this is all Ada's fault._

"Come on," she said, reaching back to grab Ashley's hand.

She led the girl out into the open, moving quickly before reaching cover again as they scaled the winding stairway. They arrived at another platform that was bare, save for a small gazebo in the corner.

"Wait here," she told Ashley, releasing her hand to ready her rifle.

When she peeked around the corner, she saw another man pointing her way, his robes red and an ox skull mounted on his head.

"Nonbeliever!" he shouted in Spanish to the others as she tried to line sights on him. "Kill her!"

The catapult fired, Helena managing to get two shots off before she had to take cover. The flaming boulder struck the small platform across from the gazebo, another launching right after. The second one hit even closer, so close it warmed Helena's cheeks.

_Fuck. They don't care if they destroy the castle to get us._

Looking through the sniper's scope, she saw the red-garbed zealot and his lackeys ducking down after launching the catapult. She cursed, she couldn't get a clear shot at any of them. With two boulders on the way, she backed Ashley a few feet away again in case the next two struck closer.

"We have to make a run for it," she said.

"What?" Ashley squeaked, eyes wide in fear. "But they're still firing at us!"

"We'll be fine," Helena promised, unflinching even as another boulder shook the ground. "The catapults they're using are slow and hard to aim, they won't hit us if we run. There's more cover on the other side of the portcullis. I'll have them flanked from there."

"They could close it on us when they see it coming," Ashley realised in horror. "What if we don't run fast enough? What if-"

"We'll make it," Helena said with conviction, looking Ashley in the eye.

"You're so brave," Ashley whispered in awe, her voice quivering. "Why are you so brave, Helena?"

"Come on," Helena urged, taking Ashley's hand again. "After the next two shots, we're going," she said, gently squeezing Ashley's hand when the girl mewed like a small child. "Ready…" she said, alerting Ashley as they waited.

The wall in front of them, the one they had backed away from, exploded in mortar and stone.

"Let's go!" Helena shouted, tugging Ashley's hand before the wall had even finished collapsing. They ran across the ruined platform of uneven, broken stone, dashing for the portcullis which, as Ashley had feared, started to close. "Duck!" she ordered, freeing her hand to slide under.

"Helena!" Ashley cried helplessly, frozen in fear at the three-quarter close point and just stood there, looking horrified, alone on the other side.

"Ashley, get back into cover!" Helena said, gesturing wildly at the girl. "Stay far down on the wall!"

A boulder crashed near them, flinging heated rubble. Ashley squeaked and ran back as instructed, thankfully safe from any more attacks.

_They're out to kill me, not Ashley. Good._

More fiery boulders were launched, directed at Helena as she ran down the stone-enclosed pathway to more stairs. She propped her sniper on one of the divot ridges, seeing through the scope a barrel of gasoline being positioned beside the catapult.

As the zealots wheeled the catapult in her direction, she shot the barrel, spilling the liquid. She then quickly fired at the torch, knocking it right out of a man's hand to set the drenched floor alight. The men had no chance of escape before they all went up in flames, catapult and all.

Moving a few feet across and setting her sights again, Helena saw another gasoline barrel stationed near the last manned catapult. Looking through the scope, she picked out another torch in the hands of a zealot, thankful that it was nighttime and for the lack of electricity in this place. Again she shot the barrel and then the zealot's torch, setting him and the catapult nearby on fire.

The area safe, Helena doubled back to the narrow, stone trail and towards the bombed, ruined and twisted portcullis.

"Ashley!" she called out.

"I'm up here," Ashley responded, her voice coming from above where Helena had just been.

Helena hurried back up, stopping halfway when she saw Ashley at the top with Ada.

"Ada came and got me," Ashley said, while Ada just smiled.

"What, you're still here?" Helena grumbled to Ada as she joined them, having expected the woman to disappear like last time.

Ada shrugged in response, looking amused as she often did. Helena wondered if she would ever get a straight answer from this woman.

At the top landing of the circular tower, just outside the tall door, bodies scattered on the ground. There was at least a dozen of them, not having died to arrows. One had a mace sticking out of his head, another with a morning star chain wrapped around his neck and spiked through the chest with the hanging ball. Others lay scattered in a gory sight with missing limbs.

Despite all the blood and the sickly yellow pus, there was not a single stain on Ada.

 _Quick, resourceful, efficient and flawless,_ Helena thought, _and I still don't have a damn clue who she is and what she's up to._

Keeping Ashley close, Helena crossed over to the giant door. She painstakingly pushed the heavy thing open and found a small enclosed stone trail.

"Is this the entrance?" Ashley asked, passing through just behind Ada as they came upon a red metal door down the far right side.

"Yeah, let's go," Helena said, then muttered, "get the hell out of here already."

They took the rusty red door to the interior and walked into another corridor, which opened up into a greeting room lit by a candelabra. There was a heavy, wooden table set before a large, decorative sword on the wall.

"Oh, Helena," Ada called a few steps into the room, "I've sent you a little something. It will probably help."

With a suspicious eye twitch, Helena stopped and checked her handheld, finding what looked to be a complete set of blueprints of the castle's interior.

"The hell?" Helena rumbled, glaring at Ada. "How do you know my number?"

Ada smiled knowingly, and Helena suddenly remembered the parting gift the woman had left her at the church. Consequently, her gaze dropped to Ada's chest, the top buttons of the woman's shirt undone and revealing an unseemly amount of cleavage.

"Eyes up here, Helena."

Helena went rigid like she had been caught with her hand in Ada's shirt. Blushing, she quickly looked away. Ada was smirking at her, she just knew it.

"Let's get going, shall we?" Ada chimed, laughing softly.

Helena muttered an answer and led the way. Beside her, Ashley stayed close, glancing between her and Ada.

Further in, she heard chanting coming from the second floor and held out a hand to Ashley's shoulder, silently telling her to stay back. Ada advanced on ahead with her. Without speaking, they flanked the stairs, Helena taking the left and Ada turning right. The first two black-robed zealots were shot in synchronization, one with a loud firearm, the other with a swift arrow.

"Get them!" came a cry spoken in Spanish from her right.

Helena wasn't sure if her first target was dead yet, but she turned her Hydra immediately on the open doorway that led outside. Two were floored with her next Hydra shot in the doorway. Seeing Ada having no trouble with another two zealots, she advanced on the pair by the doorway to stab them.

"Helena!" Ashley screamed from below, loud footsteps following like the girl was trying to run. "Helena, help!"

Leaving her knife on a zealot, Helena turned, hightailing it down the stairs after Ashley. Directly at the bottom of the stairs, three more zealots had joined Ashley. One in black robes lay twitching from the taser, but Ashley had only been able to pull that trick once. Now, another zealot in red robes and an ox skull on his head had Ashley's wrist pinned to the wall with a hand, his body crammed up against hers to lock her in place. Ashley screamed and dropped the taser as his grip seemingly tightened.

At the first sight of Helena, the one in red robes issued an order to the rest.

"Kill her!"

Ashley gasped and cried out when the zealot effortlessly lifted her and tossed her over his shoulder.

"Helena!"

Helena smacked an advancing zealot with her Hydra, hard enough to make him trip back down the stairs, and threw herself at Ashley's captor. Ashley winced and braced herself as Helena flew at him - she'd have to remember to tell the girl not to do that when expecting a fall again - but Helena tackled him straight to the back, making the three of them tumble in a heap of limbs.

Ashley squeaked like she was in pain, and Helena didn't blame her with the full weight of herself and the zealot pressing down on the girl. Helena recovered first from the fall and grabbed the front of the zealot's robe to roll off with him, Ashley skittering away as soon as she was free.

Helena kept rolling the zealot till his back was on the floor again, then took him by the shoulder and pinned him against the stone. She tried to line her Hydra up under his neck, but the zealot grabbed the muzzle of her gun, his grip surprisingly strong. Helena had to tighten her own grip to keep her hold on her Hydra, and even then, it was a struggle for the weapon.

"Helena, look out!" Ashley screamed in panic.

Helena's reflexes had only a second to pick up the figure behind her rushing in. Knowing she couldn't fight for the gun and evade the second zealot at the same time, she let go and rolled away. A mace smacked into the zealot right where she had been. Pulling out her Picador fast, Helena shot the one wielding the mace at least six times before he stopped twitching. Without her knife, she had to waste another five bullets on the one Ashley had tased.

"Are you alright, Ashley?" Helena asked, picking up the taser as she made her way back to the girl.

"I… I think so…" Ashley stammered, her breathing shallow.

Once Ashley had calmed down, Helena went to fetch her Hydra from the red-garbed zealot, but as she extended a hand for it, the body jerked suddenly and grabbed at her wrist. Helena stomped a boot into his stomach and used the taser she held in her hands.

He trembled and twitched, but that wasn't it. As his mouth started to open, his throat started to gurgle and distort like there was something struggling inside. Helena reached for her Picador again, expecting another plaga with tentacles to burst out through the man's head, but something far more disturbing happened.

A giant, bloated plaga with insect-like legs erupted out of the mouth of the man, so big that it ripped his mouth open and tore his face clean in half. The top of the head, barely connected by some flaps of flesh from the neck, flipped backwards and hung lifelessly while the chin of his face fell forward limply. Blood and yellow pus splattered everywhere near the body.

Helena heard a gasp from Ashley before the poor girl got sick and vomited. It was hardly the time, but Helena couldn't blame her at all. She herself was hardly trained for this, the most preparation she had gone through was reading files about the Raccoon City Incident beforehand. Hunnigan had recruited her on the pretense that she would later join the anti-bioterrorism division, but the president had yet to approve of it and thus no specialized field training existed.

When this is all over, however it ends, she had no doubt President Graham would make anti-bioterrorism a priority.

Helena immediately shot with her Picador, but the bullets barely made the plaga flinch. The man still held her Hydra in his hand securely, but he didn't lift it to shoot it at her. Instead, the plaga in his neck wriggled and squirmed on top of him until it seemed to gargle something back in its mouth. She barely ducked and rolled out of the way as a giant ball of spit ate through the stone wall behind her.

She kept firing, and finally, the thing reared back and screeched, as if hurt. With a few more well-placed bullets into the core of the fleshy growth, the body, plaga and all, fell back to the ground. Holstering her Picador, she picked up a nearby torch discarded by one of the men, and quickly removed her Hydra from dead man's hand. She dropped the torch on the body, burning it along with the plaga.

Once she was certain it was dead, Helena turned to her sick companion in the corner. When she rushed over, the girl had fresh tears running down her cheeks. Helena wasn't looking at it, but she saw blood mixed with the mess on the floor.

"His head," Ashley said with fresh tears in her eyes. "T-the way it flipped back," she stuttered, then let out a sort of distressed cry. "Is that going to happen to me?" she asked, trembling at the thought. "I don't want to die, Helena. Not like that."

Helena didn't entirely know how to soothe Ashley, so she just wrapped her arms around the shaking girl.

"That's not going to happen," she tried to tell her. Knowing their gory surroundings probably weren't helping, Helena scooped Ashley into her arms to carry her out of the room, murmuring, "I'm not going to let that happen to you."

She really couldn't know, but that wasn't what Ashley needed to hear.

Ashley bit her lip hard and looked down at herself.

"Helena," she whispered, sniffling and curling into Helena for comfort, tears still gently gliding down her cheeks. "Can we call my dad again?"

"Of course," Helena said as she gently carried Ashley up the stairs, where they found Ada surrounded by dead bodies, not a scratch or a stain on her person as usual. "Thank you," she said to the woman, knowing how much worse things could have turned out without her.

Ada nodded, her eyes on Ashley but she said nothing.

"We're going to call HQ," Helena told her, taking Ashley away from the bodies and setting the girl down on the table. "We'll get your dad on the line," she said soothingly.

Ashley nodded, looking at her with grateful eyes.

"Thank you."

Helena took out her handheld and patched a call through to Hunnigan, relieved when her handler showed up on screen.

"Helena, I'm glad to hear from you," Hunnigan said, looking relieved. "What's your status? Are you at the extraction point?"

"Not yet," Helena sighed. "We've been detoured into a castle and it's Los Illuminados territory, but we're okay. Send the teams to the island base, we'll rendezvous with them there."

"Alright," Hunnigan said, hesitating a bit. "We've lost contact with the first extraction team we originally sent for you, Helena, but we still have all our teams en route and in contact. Construction of Luis Sera's machine is already underway and we have our best scientists studying his data. Why the island base, Helena?"

"Because if we take too long to get through this castle, then our only hope is using the machine Sera has on the island," Helena explained, wishing she didn't have to voice that reality in front of Ashley but she had no choice. "Look, Hunnigan, is the president there?" she asked, deflecting. "Ashley wants to talk to him."

"Of course, Helena," Hunnigan obliged, rousing Ashley's attention. "I'm sure he'll want to see her again. Let me just-"

Hunnigan's voice was cut off, the screen fizzling out.

"Hunnigan?" Helena asked, then checked the signal, which seemed to be fine.

"What happened?" Ashley whispered, face falling at her missed chance.

"Something's wrong with the connection," was the most Helena could deduce, and she hated the crestfallen look on Ashley's face for it. "We can try again when we get outside," she said, trying to make her feel better about it.

"It won't work on castle grounds, I imagine." Ada remarked. "Looks jammed."

Helena narrowed her eyes at the woman, but she knew better than to ask how Ada knew that at this point. She knew Ada was in possession of some sort of signal jammer, but she doubted that was in play, she wouldn't have been able to contact Hunnigan at all if that were the case.

There was nothing to be done about it now. She squeezed Ashley's shoulder comfortingly.

"We'll get in touch with him, Ashley. You're going to see him again."

Ashley's eyes stayed on the ground. She nodded, but it wasn't with the same enthusiasm she had shown earlier.

Behind her, Ada idly pushed open the door that led to another section of the castle outside.

"Kill her!" someone shouted, followed by a fired arrow that Ada avoided simply by making a side-step. The projectile flew past in a clean miss and struck the wall on the far side.

"Get under the table!" Helena ordered Ashley, who scrambled to it immediately.

"No need," Ada replied coolly, stepping into the doorway like there was nothing to fear and shooting with her crossbow.

Helena hurried to the door in time to see a black-robed zealot crumple at the single shot to the chest.

"I suggest you retrieve his key before it becomes messy," Ada advised.

"Messy?"

"Thermo arrow," Ada answered simply, then picked at the arrow buried in the far wall. "Simple wood," she said with a scoff, breaking it between her fingers. "Amateurs."

Helena didn't know what she was talking about, but the feeling wasn't uncommon with Ada. She ventured out, Picador raised, but there was no one else to attack her. Helena quickly retrieved the key from a chain around the man's neck as the rancid smell of decomposition started to follow.

"The hell?" she mumbled, and as she watched him, he started to deteriorate in front of her, like his body was liquidating inside and could no longer hold structure.

Ada strolled casually out, asking, "Are you going to open the door?"

Helena stared at the unrecognizable mess on the floor a little longer before turning to Ada. For someone so easily disgusted, she thought, _that_ was disgusting.

Regardless, Helena certainly wasn't going to let Ashley see.

"Ashley, this way," Helena called, guiding the girl far from the remains. "Why is there only one guard out here?"

"Hmm?"

"They swarmed us on the way in," Helena said, leading to the next set of giant doors, "but right outside the castle entry, they only have one guard with the key?"

"They're probably just waiting for inside," Ada remarked without worry.

Once again thinking there was no point in asking the woman to explain further, Helena just used the key to unlock the doors. A very old creaking followed, and she positioned herself to push. Her shoulder started aching again, she was going to need to take another dose of painkillers soon. Wincing, she pushed the unseemly oversized doors open and the three of them went inside.

* * *

The room was like that of a palace, opening up into an enormous, spacious area. Huge, round and bulky cylinder supports rose up to the ceiling. Torches lit a carpet-laid pathway up a grand set of stairs to a throne that sat under an overhanging archway. Above the throne, there was a balcony with extravagant blue curtains draped over an entrance behind it.

As they walked down the main hall, a raspy cackle broke out. Ada gave Helena a knowing look. She was right again. Did anything surprise this woman? Helena wondered.

From the balcony, a diminutive man stepped forward. He was flanked by two hulking, cloaked figures that easily rivaled the size of the village chief, gleaming eyes and large mandibles visible under the hoods they wore. By his stature, Helena identified the man in the middle as Ramon Salazar, but instead of the 20-year-old castellan she had seen in photographs, she saw a pallid old man, his face wrinkled and his hair gray.

"Ah, you must be Agent Harper," he drawled in delight, speaking in Spanish. "How nice of you to not only bring us the girl but also one of the rats we've been hunting. It shouldn't be long before the other turns up, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I am Ramon Salazar, the eight castell-"

Helena fired her Picador, shooting him between the eyes. Salazar cried out, nearly stumbling off his feet.

"H-how dare you!" he shrieked, clutching his now bleeding face. "Do you think you can ju-"

Helena pulled the trigger again, hitting the same spot. She fired three more rounds, one bullet for each hand and the last to his head, knocking him off his feet. Salazar wailed pitifully, like a child throwing a tantrum. His guards, unresponsive when he being was shot, finally began to move, heading towards the edge of the balcony.

"No!" Salazar ordered, and his guards stopped, obeying him immediately. "Leave them. Let them wander the castle until they draw out Luis." Slowly, he got to his feet, his bloody hands cradling his face, his eyes nearly forced shut. "In time, Agent Harper, you'll be willingly handing me the gi-"

She shot him again, making him sputter and scream indignantly.

"Seal the archway!" he yelled, stumbling out of view, his guards following him.

The ground shook as a wall came up, blocking the way to the path ahead.

"I see you finally put a silencer on that that thing," Ada remarked, and Helena wondered if that was supposed to be a praise. "But why did you do that?" the woman asked, her arms crossed, her relaxed posture suggesting she didn't expect Salazar to retaliate and again, she was right.

"Do what?" Helena asked back, clipping back on her belt the flash grenade she had been ready and expecting to use on Salazar, but he had a surprisingly sturdy head.

"Shoot him," Ada said simply, like it was obvious.

"Why not?" Helena snapped, annoyed that they were even having this conversation.

Ada shrugged.

"He may have said something useful. He seemed like the type to tell you all about his evil plan right before he kills you."

Helena stared at Ada, waiting for a punchline that never came. Behind her, Ashley was similarly confused.

"I know what they're planning," Helena said, approaching the wall that was blocking the archway.

"Oh?" came Ada's response, though the woman didn't sound the least bit surprised.

Helena stopped, eyes narrowing at Ada.

"How are you connected to Luis Sera?"

Ada laughed, her expression serene.

"It's cute how you're expecting an answer."

Helene scowled, only amusing Ada further. With a grumble, she turned her attention away from the infuriatingly vague woman and back to the wall.

The giant wall nearly reached the ceiling, stopping just under the arch. It was decorated as lavishly as the rest of this room, framed by two tall pillars with ornate carvings, and featuring a giant stone image of a man fighting a chimera. The man on the horse was painstakingly detailed, but there were blank sections in the chimera where the stone was indented, looking starkly incomplete. There were even lit candelabras on either side of the main art piece. The whole wall was clearly an arrogant statement of fortune and power.

"Great, another puzzle," Helena muttered, seeing the missing three sections on the chimera. She eyed the top of the huge wall, the space was tight but a body could easily fit through. There were a few options here.

"This is where we need to go, isn't it?" Ada said, almost sounding like she was talking to herself.

Helena accessed the map on her handheld, though she already had a feeling Ada was right.

"Yeah, it is."

"You mean we need to find the pieces of the chimera?" Ashley asked, confused. "How would that even work? Where would we even start looking?"

"We don't have to," Helena said, getting an idea, she turned to Ada.

"Is that so?" the woman asked, regarding her curiously and showing real interest for the first time.

Helena nodded, eyes never leaving Ada's.

"Yeah. Swing us over the balcony with your grapple gun."

Ada raised one eyebrow first, then the other. Then she smiled, but said nothing.

"Well?" Helena barked, already flustered. "Are you going to do it or not?"

Ada tilted her head slightly, the smile persisting.

"Maybe if you ask me nicely."

Helena gritted her teeth, resisting every urge and impulse to tackle this woman.

"Please," she bit out, her face red.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Ada teased, then quickly went over the balcony by herself. "It's clear," she announced, jumping down and landing gracefully. "Let's go. Ashley, you first."

"O-okay," the girl stammered, awkwardly holding on to Ada.

Other than a squeak from Ashley, the trip went without incident. Then Ada came back for her with that smirk Helena was really starting to hate. Her entire body was tensed as Ada drew closer, practically goading her. Stiffly, she put her right arm around the woman's back, trying to ignore the swell of breasts against her upper arm. She gingerly reached across Ada's front with her left arm, gently clasping the woman's right shoulder.

"Better hold on tight," Ada purred, wrapping an arm around Helena's waist and pressing their bodies together securely.

Helena, feeling like her face caught fire, looked down to avoid Ada's eyes, only to get an excellent view of the woman's cleavage.

"Oh, God," she mumbled, shutting her eyes.

Ada laughed and aimed the grapple gun. As soon as their feet left the ground, a horrible jolt of pain shot through Helena, her arm aching. She shut her eyes and tightened her hold around Ada's back to relieve the pressure on her left arm, but it did little to alleviate the agonizing burn that scorched her whole upper shoulder. Tucking her head against Ada, she gritted her teeth to bypass the torture. It was a relief when they finally touched down again.

They landed smoothly, Ada being remarkably gentle with her. Helena was slow to drag her left arm off the woman, the pain in her shoulder worsening with the slightest move. Her earlier embarrassment completely forgotten, she stepped away from Ada, clutching her shoulder. Ashley hurried over to her, looking worried.

"Did you hurt your shoulder again?" the girl asked, steadying her when she swayed a little.

"It's nothing," she said, reaching into her pockets with her good hand.

She took three more painkillers, swallowing them whole and not bothering with water despite her throat feeling so dry.

"Let's go," she insisted, walking past Ashley and Ada and heading for the stairs.

She suddenly stopped, noticing a door to the side where a blood trail seemed to end into a wall.

 _Figures Salazar would have a hidden escape route,_ she thought before moving on.

"Helena!"

Ashley wouldn't let it go that easily. Even Ada slid on ahead and opened the doors at the bottom of the stairs, which surprised Helena, the woman had barely touched anything else in the castle yet.

"What'd you just take? Are those painkillers?" Ashley asked, having caught up to her with ease. "Your arm must be horrible if you're taking something for it!"

"We've got bigger things to worry about," Helena tried to ease her off as they stepped through the doors Ada had opened for her. "I'm okay. Don't worry about it."

"Helena…"

"More importantly," Helena pointed out, using anything to distract her. Luckily enough - or weirdly enough - they had just walked into a room of questionable nature. "Where the hell are we?"

The room had twin rails along either side of their path, the kind a tram would run on. Stranger yet, that's exactly what it seemed to lead to. Behind two lit candelabras was a little box cart with faded, leather-plush seats that faced each other. There was a small lever coming up out of the floor of the carrier. Helena stared at it, baffled.

"What is this place?" Ashley asked, momentarily distracted long enough to wonder too. "What's it doing in the middle of the castle?"

"At least the scenery's nice," Ada commented, meaning the open-walled window separated by pillars that gave a view of a house and the town under a cloudy night. She kept walking towards it, then sat on one of the seats.

"What are you doing?" Helena barked.

"This is the way we have to go, isn't it?" Ada said, gesturing at the rail path behind her. "So, let's go."

"We don't even know what this thing is or why it's here," Helena grumbled, annoyed with how calm the woman was. "It could lead us to the dungeons for all we know."

Ada smiled at her.

"This is too expensive to be used for prisoners."

"Then what's it for?" she challenged, but all it did was make Ada smirk.

"Maybe Salazar would have told you if you didn't shoot him."

Helena stared at the woman, not sure if she was making a joke again or not.

"Are you coming?" Ada finally asked again, sitting patiently. She crossed her leg over and intentionally nudged the lever as she did so, which turned gracefully to the other side. Gears under the cart started to grind and disengage locks down below. "I suggest you hurry," she advised casually as the cart gradually started to move.

"Ada!" Helena barked, taking Ashley by the arm and hurrying aboard before it gained enough momentum that it tossed them back into their seats.

"You were taking too long," Ada said with a shrug, seated all too comfortably.

"If this leads into a trap…" Helena muttered, glaring at the relaxed woman.

"But there's no other way to go, is there?" Ada pleasantly reminded her, smiling again. "Just relax and enjoy the ride."

"Helena, let me see your arm," Ashley said, already starting to pick at her sleeve to lift it.

She automatically closed a hand over Ashley's fingers to stop her.

"I'm fi-" she started to say.

"Stop lying and let her take care of you," Ada said, interrupting her. "Someone has to," the woman added, an image of ease sitting on that small seat.

Ashley looked at her with pleading eyes, but Ada's input might as well have given the girl permission. She sighed and sat back, letting Ashley roll up her sleeve further. She didn't really want the younger girl to see. Ashley had enough to be scared about, and she was sure her shoulder looked terrible.

Ashley sucked in a breath when the first of the bruising started to show. Even Helena had to admit, it was ugly. It started with a yellow discoloration lower on her shoulder, but the higher Ashley pushed back her sleeve, the worse it became. Mottled and dark colored, her whole shoulder blade was surrounded by black and blue on purple bruising. It stung even as Ashley gently brushed back the sleeve.

The whole area had swollen around the upper quarter of her torso and arm. Helena moved back the strap that held her sniper and her shoulder holster, releasing a lot of the pressure on the swollen area. Though she almost wished she hadn't, knowing she would have to set the strap and the holster back into place. The discoloured and bruised skin seemed to swell further with the momentary release of weight.

"Helena," Ashley barely spoke over a horror-filled whisper. "It's horrible." Ashley's terrified eyes found hers. "Did I do that?" she asked, softspoken. "Did I push it back wrong? I did, didn't I?"

"Ashley, no," Helena reprimanded gently, lifting a hand to Ashley's fingers on her shoulder. "You didn't do anything wrong. I dislocated it, this is what happens."

"And when you use yourself as a battering ram," Ada quipped.

Helena glanced Ada's way, but didn't argue because the woman was actually helping to prove her point to Ashley. Helping in an annoying way as usual, but the younger girl really wasn't at fault.

"But you had to jump because of me…" Ashley said softly, head lowering down in shame. "With me."

"I would have had to jump, with or without you," Helena pointed out logically, wanting this off the poor girl's shoulders. She was already upset enough without carrying around the burden of guilt as they tried to escape. "You set it back into place, Ashley," Helena insisted, gently moving her fingers down off the sore spot. "It'd be a lot worse if you hadn't."

Ashley looked at her with sad eyes, watching as she rolled her sleeve back down.

"I wish we could do something about it," the girl murmured. "We don't even have ice for the swelling."

"It'll be okay until we get back," Helena promised.

"It should be in a sling," Ada remarked, looking at her.

"No," Helena grunted.

Ada smiled knowingly.

"I didn't think so."

"Helena…" Ashley whispered, fretful again.

"We have a map of the castle, we can take the quickest way out," she said, trying to get the girl's mind off her injury. "It's okay, Ashley. We'll be heading home soon."

She hoped it wasn't an empty promise. She didn't know how much more she could withstand if her arm was struck again. Only time would tell.

* * *

"Why are all the doors grandiose?" Helena grumbled as they stood before another set of double doors that were sealed behind bars. "And who bars over a door?" she growled, then turned to Ada. "Burn through it with your laser."

"No."

Helena blinked at the response.

"No?"

"No," Ada calmly repeated.

"Why the hell not?" Helena demanded, her patience gone.

Ada smiled, amused.

"Because you're cute when you're flustered."

"Ada!" Helena barked, sick of this place and this woman's annoying mysteries.

"The bars are rigged," Ada said without missing a beat, throwing Helena off again.

"What?"

"Rigged," Ada repeated as if she were deaf. "There's a wire lining behind the leftmost bar through a hole in the door. Go ahead and touch if you want. I'm actually curious."

"Fuck!" Helena swore savagely. This was nothing but another setback that they didn't have time for.

"Helena," Ashley called from the side, as she approached a statue of a queen holding out her hands. "I think something fits here," the girl said, then showed her. "Look, the middle platform on their hands depresses." She demonstrated by pressing it down, and indeed, it gave way, if only by a fraction of a centimeter. "I think it goes down further. Maybe if we put the right thing in her hands?"

"Don't forget the king," Ada added, making Helena frown and follow her eyes to the second statue on the right, a king instead of a queen. This one was also holding out his hands for something that wasn't there.

"Ugh," Helena groaned, putting two and two together. "Another puzzle."

"You didn't think the chimera on the wall is the only puzzle in this castle, did you?" Ada asked, her tone teasing.

Helena scowled, but refused to further humor the woman.

"Then where the hell are we supposed to look?" she grumbled, resisting the urge to just shoot through the doors.

"We ignored two side-doors on the way here," Ada said, then inclined her head to each statue. "One for a king, and one for a queen."

"I don't believe this," Helena muttered, already turning around and doubling back.

"Helena, we have to be careful," Ashley insisted, catching up as they started back down the wide, lavish hall that connected into a smaller hallway. "If they set it up for us, it's probably a trap."

"We'll get through whatever it is," Helena promised her, then cast a glare back at Ada. "If this doesn't work, we're using your laser."

"Is that so?" Ada asked with that smile Helena was growing to despise.

"Let's just go," she rumbled, leading them back through the twisting, decorated hallway until they once again reached the room with four different doors.

One led back out to the tram room, and the one beside it was locked, probably storage. Ada nodded to the one on the left wall.

"The queen first," Ada said, sounding like she was giving an order.

Helena almost took the other route out of pure stubbornness, but she wouldn't give Ada that satisfaction. She took the path to the crest-adorned, golden door without a word and she could tell without looking that Ada was still smiling.

When Helena opened the door, she walked into a room with more crests hanging over every wall point. It was almost ridiculous how many weapons were on display next to shields of adornment, but that wasn't the only notable thing about the room. In addition to those decorations, two heavily armored statues were mounted on three-foot stone blocks in the middle of the checkerboard floor.

The room didn't appear to have any other doors besides the one they had used to get in. Helena stepped in cautiously, holding a hand for Ashley to stay back for the moment. She almost jumped out of her skin when the floor depressed, creaking under her feet.

"Floor keys," Ada calmly noted as Helena struggled to get her bearings.

She looked down to see that the wide, square panel she had just stepped on had sunken a few inches. She saw that there were three more similar brown panels positioned at each corner of the room, separated from the rest of the tiled floor by a small ledge.

"What?" Helena blurted, feeling so slow-witted compared to Ada.

"Seems easy enough," Ada remarked. "The door's right there," she pointed to an arch-framed wall segment Helena had completely dismissed as part of the wall decorations. "These panels sink with weight on them. If we all stand on a panel, that door will open."

Helena gave her disbelieving look.

"What are you, an expert on castle puzzles?" she mumbled, just feeling confused now.

Ada's shoes clicked on the floor as she walked towards one of the panels.

"Maybe."

Helena started for the third corner before she realized their actual dilemma. True enough, when she stepped on it, the door remained closed. Her eyes strayed to one of the armored statues with a square base. It looked heavy, with more than enough weight to lower a platform.

"I think I can move one of the statues over the last block," she said.

"Of course you do," Ada practically cooed, that damn smile on her face.

Was this woman always amused?

Shaking her head, Helena approached one of the heavy, quartz statues. As she hunched down to push it, she heard Ashley yell at her.

"Not with your injured shoulder!"

Helena cast a much more gentle, appreciative smile back to Ashley and nodded. Ignoring the burning in the limb at the hunched over position, she shouldered into the stone on her uninjured side while applying as much pressure as she could bear with her hand pushing against it. The solid statue moved agonizingly slow as she needed to reposition every foot or so, bracing her legs to push as well. It felt like it weighed at least five hundred pounds.

"Can I help?" Ashley asked sweetly, coming over to hover by her.

"There's no room to stand," Ada pointed out, then added with a small glimmer in her eyes. "It's up to Helena. You can handle it, can't you?"

"Yeah," Helena breathed out and tried not to reveal how much effort it was really taking. She didn't want Ashley to worry again. Lack of sustenance had to be playing a role here, she felt hungrier than ever as she pushed. "Just a little more."

When she had moved it far enough to the side, Helena changed direction and switched sides on the statue base to push it the rest of the way there. She pushed with her good shoulder and legs, the pain in her arm becoming unbearable.

"Good thing we have a brute like you around."

Helena was too tired to even glare at Ada. She just walked over to the last panel as Ashley climbed back on to her own. As soon as Helena's first foot depressed the square on the floor, there was a sound of old stone sliding as the door ahead of them lifted.

"You're going to explain how you knew all this at some point," Helena half-threatened Ada's way, who only smiled.

"Is that so?"

Helena grunted as she headed for the door. The next room was completely barren, except for another door on the left side. These walls were wood-panelled, decorated with many framed portraits, and paintings were also hung on the far wall. An ornate circular pattern was laid out across the floor and even the ceiling was decorated with a network of distinct indentations.

"This is a trap," Ada said, strolling in behind Helena without fear.

"It's a what?" Helena asked and received no answer as Ashley moved close to her, nervous.

"Let's see..." Ada murmured, seeming to be talking to no one. She approached the opposite door. Suddenly, metal groaned as hidden locks disengaged, bars coming up on the doors. Ashley squeaked at Helena's side.

"I'd crouch down if I were you," Ada suggested as a series of spikes popped out of holes in the ceiling, the whole thing beggining to lower down on them.

"Ada!" Helena barked as Ashley clung to her arm in fright. "You'll get us all killed!" she cursed and looked back over at the barred exits.

Ada scoffed and pulled free her Blacktail handgun Helena had never seen her use. Before she could even ask what Ada was doing, the woman shot at a red, blinking light above. There were four of them on the ceiling, Helena hadn't noticed even one before the ceiling started coming down.

The first glass light cracked at her well-aimed shot. Ada took out the second and third in similar fashion, like she was just going through the motions. When the fourth blinking light shattered, it was followed by a heavy groan as the ceiling came to a halt, still a good two feet above their heads.

With a click, the bars over the doors lifted up.

Ada shook her head, unimpressed

"That was too easy."

"Easy for you," Helena muttered as Ashley clung to her arm.

Ada smiled at her, then stepped through the unbarred door.

"Can we go now?" Ashley asked, wanting to get out of the room.

"Come on," Helena said, tugging her along.

Ada was waiting ahead, inspecting something in the torch-lit hallway, at the end of which was a doorway to another room.

"Another trap," Ada announced, sounding bored, then strolled ahead.

"And we're just walking right into it?" Helena asked, challenging the woman.

"I don't see another way. Do you?" Ada countered, not even stopping.

Helena grunted and followed, not happy with this at all.

"You're going to get Ashley hurt," she muttered, keeping the girl close to her side.

"They want her alive, don't they?" Ada said.

"They're supposed to," Helena said, aggravated, "but that last trap could have killed us."

"They must really want you dead," Ada remarked.

"Or you," she retorted.

"I wasn't the one who shot the castellan six times," Ada reminded her, helpful as ever.

The end of the hall was near with only an open doorway ahead.

"Guess you were wrong about the trap," she told Ada.

Ada simply smiled. Literally with the next step, a familiar creak sounded overhead.

"Shit!" Helena swore, barring out an arm to shove both Ashley and Ada through the doorway.

Bars slammed down in-between them, just missing Helena's nose by a fraction as the steel bars luckily - incredibly - slid down on either side of her feet with the bottom, lowest bar coming down just far enough to squish the top of her toes, but not break them.

"Helena!" Ashley cried out, flinging herself to the bars where Helena was trapped by her feet facing them.

Behind her, the loud roar of a motor and breaking stone indicated company had arrived.

"I was wrong about the trap, hm?" Ada chimed. "You may want to duck," the woman advised, unslinging her crossbow from her back.

Helena glanced over her shoulder and saw two men behind the wheel of a huge, drill-like machine armed with deadly spikes, driving it towards her. She tried to move, but the lowest bars had her legs distinctly trapped, facing forward. When she turned back, Ada leveled the crossbow at her head. Helena almost fell right to her ass - if she could in this position - as she ducked only an instant before the arrow flew from Ada's crossbow.

"Fuck!" Helena cursed at her. "You could've hit me!"

"I told you to duck," Ada quipped, at complete ease with herself as she reloaded the crossbow.

"Helena," Ashley said, her hands gripping the bars, looking terrified. "She killed one of them. There's just one more on the machine now."

Helena glanced back over her shoulder to see that, sure enough, only one zealot was manning the giant machine. She kept low in case Ada pulled the same stunt again, but as she watched, a second arrow sailed passed and struck the remaining zealot's head. He fell forward onto the spikes as the machine slowed, and was torn to shreds. Though the fast moving blades didn't pause, the machine stopped advancing towards her.

"Oh, Helena!" Ashley cried in relief, actually reaching through the bars to hug her. "Don't do that. The bars could have slammed down on you! You could have died five different ways. Don't do it again!"

Behind Ashley, as Helena gave the girl a squeeze back to comfort her, Ada slung the crossbow back over her shoulders where it slid into place without a hitch to her leather holster.

"Thank you," she said to the woman, her voice low.

Ada offered her a pleasant smile.

"Let's get you out of there, shall we?"

Ashley stepped back from the gate to allow Ada to step forward. So close to her then, Ada reached into her open top and pulled her little laser pen from somewhere between her breasts.

"If you don't mind me using it," Ada teased, adding, "considering where it's from."

Helena blushed again and averted her eyes from Ada's notable cleavage.

"Just do it," she mumbled, making Ada smile as she started slicing through the bars.

When the last of the bars had been cut at the top and simply needed a good push to dislodge, Ada tucked the laser pen back into her top.

"There, you're free now," the woman said, stepping back from the bars and allowing her to push them over to the ground.

Ashley attached to her almost immediately when she was able.

"Looks like we found what we're looking for," Ada remarked as Helena came into the room, which appeared to be nothing more elaborate than a storage room with some barrels.

However, just around the bend, Helena saw that Ada was right again. Atop a stone desk sat an ornate, red and gold treasure chest.

She approached it warily with a side-glance at Ada.

"It's not a trap, you don't have to move so slow," Ada said, amused.

Helena grunted, but the woman hadn't been wrong yet, so she opened the chest. In the very middle of the deep chest sat a golden grail with two handles.

"You've got to be kidding me," Helena groaned as she pulled it out. She was really starting to hate this place.

"I'll hold it," Ashley volunteered sweetly, taking the cup from Helena so her hands were free.

They exited through a side door, which led back to the room with the checkerboard floor. Skipping back to the first door as a point of exit, they once again faced the lavish hall with four doors. Their destination was straight ahead now, over to the king's grail.

She sighed, then muttered, "Here we go."

* * *

Crossing down another long hallway, they reached an area with a dining table and chairs. Helena bypassed into another set of brown double doors, these more functional than decorative. Opening them for her party, they came into a second hallway area with a lush, red carpet laid out that led up to a large lion sculpture perched on a stone slab.

Helena walked up to it first with caution, having learned her lesson with all these traps, but nothing happened. When she turned to the left, full suits of armor lining the walls every fourth step of the way like decorative statues standing guard.

"This can't be good," Ada commented as they made their way to the next stone lion.

The red-carpeted hallway led into a round room with more sculptures, two horses reared back on hind legs. They were positioned just inside the door on either side of the entrance.

The circular room was simpler than some of the more elaborate ones they had seen. Six large archways lined the walls, evenly spaced throughout. Each archway held decorative crests or weapons with the final one standing mostly unadorned directly ahead. The floors were simple stone and a giant skylight let in vast light from the moon above, even though it was lit already with candles on the walls.

Right in the middle of the room the six archways faced a grail, raised up high on a centre platform and intricate holder.

"This is-"

"A trap," Helena snapped, finishing the sentence for Ada. "I know."

"Do you?" Ada cooed, and Helena felt like a dog being praised by her mistress.

"You two stay here," she ordered, opting not to respond to Ada. "I'll get the grail."

"Be safe," Ashley bade after her.

Helena sighed and stepped into the round room. Nothing was triggered immediately, but she knew something was bound to happen. Damn this castle and its puzzles. Hurrying to the center of the room, Helena stood before the grail.

"Good luck," Ada said, sounding like she was teasing as always.

Reaching out, Helena grabbed the handle and took the grail.

Immediately, gears started to turn. The bars over the door had dropped before Helena could even turned around. The whole room seemed to transform as sections of the walls were moving. The six archways flipped around, each rotating on their own platforms. Replacing the decorative shields and arms, full suits of armor, like the ones in the hallway, were revealed. There was one suit per platform turning to face her, reminding her of knights standing guard. Helena's hand went to her Hydra in anticipation, but when the first armored suit moved and picked up his weapon, she swore.

"What the fuck!"

Dropping the grail, she pulled out her Hydra and began shooting at the chest plate of the nearest one.

Ashley gasped. From behind the elaborate gate that had fallen, Helena heard a sarcastic, "Didn't see that coming," from Ada.

"A little help would be nice!" Helena snapped, having gotten over the fact that the armored statues were moving to kill her. "Use your thermo arrows!" she yelled, ducking and rolling as the heavy head of a halberd crashed somewhere behind her. She had deftly reloaded her Hydra during the roll, and she shot up at the neck of another one with a sword.

"Don't be ridiculous," Ada chastised. "Arrows can't pierce steel armor."

"Ada!" Helena yelled indignantly, barely flattening in time as a swing flew overhead.

She rolled as another sword stabbed at her splitting the ground instead, the space so small there was hardly room to maneuver. Helena shot one of the sword-wielding knights in the helmet and heard a bullet from Ada smacking into it right after. With both shots, the helmet came right off.

But something worse popped out from under it.

"Goddamnit, no!" Helena yelped and almost dropped her precious Hydra as a plaga with long, spiky tentacles grabbed for her.

"You didn't think the suits were empty, did you?" Ada teased in the most untimely fashion.

Too close to the unmasked plaga that had just sprouted, the spiky tentacle managed to catch her injured arm around the wrist when she fled.

"Shit!" Helena swore as it yanked her back a good foot towards the group of them. Another bullet struck the helmet of the second knight with a sword, followed by another after. "What are you doing!" she demanded, barely managing to duck down in time for a sword to come flying at her head, which just missed her fingers and severed the tentacle nicely for her. "Shoot the plaga!"

Finally slipping her now-bleeding wrist free of its grasp, she ducked away under the arm of the halberd-wielding knight, preventing them from surrounding her in the limited space. She pulled a flash grenade free from her belt.

"Don't use that," Ada ordered from the sidelines just as her next shots caused the plaga of the second knight to burst.

"Why the hell not!" Helena barked, arm raised and paused in throwing it. She shot the third in the chest as they started to get too close again.

"What happens when three more join you, hmm? You're going to need those flash grenades," Ada said, shooting the same knight Helena had just targeted.

Tentacles lashed out for Helena as she barely evaded them.

"Stop making the plaga come out!" she yelled hysterically.

"Just keep dodging," Ada chimed, following the third knight through the elaborately designed bars with her gun. "You can use that grenade when all three are out."

"If I live that long!"

Separating them by the most distance the room provided wasn't enough. For armor-burdened giants, the knights moved fast and the reach of the plaga was long. Helena yelped as another tentacle lashed at her and missed, but caught her ankle in the rebound. She fell flat to her stomach as it lifted her with enormous strength, then even suspended her higher to hold her upside down. The suit with the intact helmet came with its halberd cocked.

"Ada!"

With another bullet, the knight stumbled, its helmet bursting open. Helena threw the grenade just as the plaga started to surge out. She hit to the ground, landing hard on her back and shoulders a moment afterwards and groaned. Around her, the suits of armor collapsed as the plaga died from the flash.

"Helena," Ada called, "you may want to get up."

"Helena, there's more of them!" Ashley shouted in a much more frantic fashion.

Helena could hear stone sliding as the castle walls rotated again.

"Oh, God," she moaned, and when she sat up, she noticed another three knights just starting to move.

Another three. Just like Ada had predicted.

"What did I tell you?" Ada said cheekily.

"How do you know these things!" Helena blurted, scrambling to get up despite the pain.

"Make this quick and aim for their heads this time," Ada advised as Helena started her skittish movements to avoid them again.

There was even less space yet with pieces of armor obstructing one area, but Helena managed to avoid them pretty well until the first helmet came off. She stared at the large bloated plaga, bigger than the others but similar to the one that came from the red-robed zealot's mouth from before.

"I wouldn't get close to that one," Ada remarked.

"No shit!" Helena snapped, darting past the bars where Ada shot them from. "You're walking in first next time!"

Ada scoffed.

"And let those things touch me? I don't think so."

Helena dropped low as the plaga lunged for her and only got wisps of hair where her head had been. A second helmet flew off only a few feet away from her and a battle axe smacked into the wall beside her head. The third knight, still with its helmet, loomed over her as the other two were closing in from either side. She was cornered.

Ada shot the third knight, finally drawing the plaga out. Helena dove through knights legs as the plaga started to wriggle out, throwing a flash grenade in the corner she'd just been. It exploded in front of the three of them, which let out an inhuman squeal as the suits crumpled.

Helena collapsed, breathing hard. When more gears turned, she hoped it was just the gate opening this time.

"Helena!" Ashley cried, flying to her side in reckless abandon of all else, even the grail she held, which flew off to the side. "You're hurt!" She reached for Helena's bleeding arm and removed her scarf to wrap it.

Helena was too winded to offe the girl any comfort, trying to catch her breath on the ground. Ashley bandaged her arm up from the wrist to forearm tightly with her scarf.

"Thank you," she murmured, eyes closed for just a moment.

"It yanked your arm," Ashley said, sweetly worried, "and dropped you on your shoulder again. Is it worse? Can you still move it at all?"

"It's okay," Helena replied, and was surprised herself when she meant it.

Somehow, scaling the balcony with Ada had hurt her shoulder more than having it yanked and landing on it. The painkillers must have started to work. She could still feel some pain, but it wasn't unbearably excrutiating like before. It was a small thing to be grateful for.

"Do we have anything else to eat?" Ashley asked, concerned.

"Maybe in my pocket," Helena told the girl. "There should be half a bar left if you're hungry."

She should have thought of that earlier. Ashley was probably starving by now.

"Not for me," Ashley chastised. "For you! You're the one doing all the work around here."

"I ate before the mission," Helena reasoned, unwilling to take their last rationsfrom the girl who needed it more. "You haven't for days."

Her eyes opened when she felt Ashley's hand in her pocket.

"Here," Ashley said, pulling the bar free. "We'll both have a fourth, okay?"

Helena didn't want to, but she felt like this was a fight she wasn't going to win with the stubborn girl.

"Okay," she conceded, earning a smile from her companion and a small piece of the energy bar. "You get the water, though," she insisted as she sat up, thirsty but unwilling to take more from Ashley. She was glad Ashley seemed to understand.

"Okay," Ashley agreed, then helped her to her feet again.

The small snack piece disappeared all too quickly. Helena handed over the last of their water to Ashley and the girl stuck close to her, smiling at her whenever she looked her way.

"Are we done playing girlfriends?" Ada asked, leaning against the wall with both grails in hand and watching them in amusement.

"Shut up, Ada," Helena mumbled, the tint of a red blush in her cheeks. Leave it to Ada to embarrass her with something completely ridiculous. "Let's go."

* * *

They followed along the red carpet until they reached the wooden double doors once more. Helena went first with Ashley, followed by Ada afterwards. Using her good arm, she began to push the door open then stopped, feeling resistance from the other side.

Acting quickly, she pushed Ashley back and kicked the door open, her Hydra raised. She was about to pull the trigger when she heard a familiar yelp, making her pause long enough to recognize the man now sprawled on the floor.

"Aiyiyi," came a muffled groaned. "Agent Harper, we must stop meeting like this."

"Sera," she said, too surprised to react to his quip. "What are you doing here?"

"You told me not to die, yes?" Sera said as he sat up, still gingerly touching his face. "I was also under the impression we were to meet again," he added, then dropped his hands and flashed a smile when he saw Ashley and Ada approach. "I see you've found yourself another lady friend, Agent Harper. Care to introduce us?"

"I didn't know you associated with vagrants, Helena," Ada murmured, looking at Sera like he was a parasite.

Helena actually winced at Ada's biting tone, oddly feeling chastised.

"Ah, you wound me, senorita," Sera cheerfully responded, laughing it off as he tended to do when spurned.

"How did you know we were here?" Helena asked, having recovered from her strange bout of guilt.

"I made it to the tower and found no one there," he started, getting to his feet and picking up the pack he had dropped when he fell. "I was hoping you and Ms. Graham had gotten there first and were on your way your home, but then I saw villagers gathering around the castle. Now, here we are, in Ramon Salazar's playpen."

"The drawbridge is gone," Helena said. "How did you get in the castle?"

"My grandfather worked in the mines, he showed me a lot of secret passages in the village and the castle," he explained, managing only a small smile instead of the usual grin. "I came from the maze on the east side of the castle. Ran into a bit of trouble there, actually, it seems they thought you were heading that way, Agent Harper. Now, I believe there's a very serious matter at hand," he said, pulling out a bottle of pills from his pocket. "This is the drug I told you about. Take three pills now and again later, both you and Ms. Graham."

Helena took the bottle from him, opening it and taking out six pills. She handed three to Ashley and stared at the three in her hand. If it were up to her, she would take the drug first to see its effects before making Ashley take it, but that was a risk they couldn't afford to take. She popped all three pills in her mouth, encouraging Ashley to do the same.

"Here," Sera offered, handing a bottle of water to them. "You girls must be parched and starving. I brought water and food."

Seeing Ashley stare longingly at the pack full of food, Helena didn't hesitate to accept the offer.

"Thanks," she said gratefully, letting Ashley go through the food first while she savored a fresh drink of water. "We'll have to make these last, Ashley," she reminded the girl, certain not to make the same mistake again.

Ashley nodded, already too busy eating to talk.

"You certainly brought a lot of things," Ada remarked nonchalantly. "What else do you have there?"

Helena blinked, finding the question strange.

"Do you want some food?" she asked the cryptic woman.

"I'm not hungry," Ada said, not even looking at her.

Helena grabbed a new bottle of water from the pack, offering it to Ada.

"Water?"

"No."

Helena snorted, then muttered, "Are you even human?" before joining Ashley to eat.

"I apologize, senorita, but that's all I have," Sera said to Ada, laughing again, though he sounded a little strained. "So, Agent Harper, do you have a plan?"

Helena gave Ashley the strip of jerky she was meant to eat, which the girl took happily.

"We're going straight to the island from here," she replied, glancing at Ada and seeing no visible reaction. "You said your machine was in the lab there, it's our best shot at getting rid of the plaga. How well do you know the castle?"

Sera grinned.

"Almost as well as I know Pueblo," he bragged. "In fact, it's very good that I am here. You still need the queen's grail, yes?"

"No," Ada answered for her.

"No?" Sera echoed, confused. "You have it? But how did you manage that with only three people…" he trailed off, looking at her.

"Helena pushed one of the statues on a panel," Ashley said, quickly returning to her food.

"Dios, Agent Harper," Sera chuckled, shaking his head. "You are full of surprises."

"Isn't she," Ada drawled, then turned to her. "Shouldn't we get moving, Helena?"

"I guess we should," Helena agreed, though a little unnerved by Ada's sudden urgency.

The woman had shown none of it so far, in fact, she had been annoyingly carefree throughout their journey in the castle from the moment she had unceremoniously set the drawbridge up into flames. Ada didn't even quip as she started down the hall, taking the lead ahead of Helena this time, which Helena found even more unnerving.

She hurried Ashley to follow, tossing a, "Follow me," back to Sera.

"Ay, Agent Harper!" Sera yelped, picking up after them. "Let a man rest a little while, no?"

Helena didn't want to lose sight of Ada who was speed-walking almost at a jog now.

"No?" Sera echoed behind her. "That's okay then! I'll just keep up."

Ada was at the ornate door by the time Helena had crossed half the room. She finished fitting the first grail by the time Helena got there, then moved over to the second just as quickly.

"Why are you suddenly in a hurry?" Helena asked, confused and suspicious.

"We've wasted enough time, don't you think?" Ada said, unsurprisingly providing an uninformative answer. She fitted the second base into place and the familiar sound of gears starting to turn and things sliding into place could be heard.

"You weren't like this before," Helena said, casting a suspicious eye at Sera, who had nothing to add but a sheepish, helpless look.

Ada didn't say anything, she didn't even look her way. When the bars had risen halfway up, the woman took the door handle - actually touched it herself - and opened it. She ducked under the bars once they were two thirds of the way up and started into the next, lavishly-windowed hallway that was thankfully empty of guards. She didn't stop to comment on the view this time, but continued moving forward.

Ada was acting strange, Helena thought, ever since Sera turned up.

She didn't buy the act of introductions, but she doubted she'd get anything out of Sera with Ada around. She would need a moment to pull him away to somewhere private and get answers, but that didn't seem possible, for the time being, at the pace Ada was taking.

Ada opened the next doors ahead, which led into a giant, round room with a gigantic sac of some sort hanging down the middle of it. Stone platforms formed a path around the outer rim and edges along with a middle passage and a drawn-up bridge on one end.

"Finally," Ada said, not seeming to be talking to anyone in particular again, and she started to reach for her side.

"What is that?" Ashley gaped in horror at the giant pod.

It was truly a remarkable and disgusting thing. Off yellow in shade with green splotches, it pulsated like a living thing.

"Helena," Ashley mumbled, gaping at it. "Is it… alive?"

A loud buzzing cut off Helena's train of thought from either of them. She turned just in time to hear Ashley scream in horror as a fly the size of a man grabbed her with gray claws. Helena didn't get much of a look at the creature before Ashley's scream echoed, the beast effortlessly lifted her up and started flying through the open ceiling.

"Helena!" Ashley screamed, terrified and trapped in its claws. "Helena!"

Helena lifted her Picador, but the fly-like creature was already too far away and escaping.

"Ashley!" she shouted in vain as the girl's screams echoed in the distance.

"I hope you get her back in time, Helena."

Helena frozen, her fast-beating heart hardly settled as her eyes fell on Ada, who had a line fired from her grapple gun secured high above already. She realized the woman's intentions with a start.

"Ada!" she shouted, her body seeming to move on its own as she ran to the woman. "No, don't-!"

The zipline pulled Ada up and away before Helena could stop her.

"Ada!" Helena yelled, again in vain as Ada disappeared over the ledge.

 _What the hell?_ First she lost Ashley and now Ada.

Turning on her heel, she grabbed a startled Sera by the shirt to keep him from disappearing too.

"I need answers!" she demanded in a guttural growl. "Now!"

A buzzing sound rose up from under them, reverberating like a storm.

"I'm afraid you'll have to wait, Agent Harper," Sera mumbled nervously as more of the insect-like creatures appeared around them.

* * *

"Shoot the hive!"

Sera's voice was barely audible as six of the flying BOWs surrounded him. They rose from the cliff edges, the buzz of their wings deafening. Helena heard his gun go off, quickly identifying it as his Red9. If that was the only gun Sera had, they were going to have problems.

"The hive, Agent Harper!" he shouted, yelling louder this time. "It'll keep producing novistadores if we don't destroy it!"

"I've got it!" Helena called back to Sera, as other beasts flew up flanking her on both sides.

She pulled out her Hydra and blasted the nearest creature - a novistador, as Sera had called it - on her left. As the buzzing grew louder, she felt something sharp cut across her ribs. One of the creatures seemingly appeared out of thin air, her blood on its claws.

"Damn it," Helena muttered while jumping back, ignoring the flash of pain.

She shot the nearest novistador, knocking it away. Behind it, she could see the air rippling and shifting rapidly, catching glimpses of glowing eyes, the colors either red, blue or green. She swore, realizing there were more.

_Novistador. The Unseen. They can turn invisible._

"They can turn invisible!" Sera unhelpfully confirmed a moment later.

She fired at one of the cloaked novistadores that lunged at her, seeing only the disjointed movement in the air and hearing the buzzing sound surge louder. The distorted outline fell to the ground with a thud, the creature turning a visible greenish brown color once more. Slipping free three shells from her pocket, Helena dashed across the platform and quickly reloaded her Hydra, cocking open the barrel to slip in the shells. She snapped it back into place fluidly, in time to shoot another novistador lunging at her, catching it mid-air.

"Agent Harper!" Sera cried after her as she sprinted towards the hive. "Don't leave me!"

With his Red9 handgun, Sera couldn't hold back the novistadores as efficiently. As he unloaded his last few bullets into the nearest beast, Helena heard him cry out again. She turned and saw him fumbling to reload while the novistador hovered closer, still alive. Loaded gun in hand, he managed one more hastily aimed shot that finally struck his foe down. Sera was only just able to hold his own, but more and more of the creatures were coming. Helena fired at another in her way, then unhooked a flash grenade from her belt.

"Cover your eyes!" she warned Sera as she tossed the grenade.

Sera shot down a novistador, noticed the grenade and yelped, ducking down. The flash went off, uncloaking the novistadores and stunning them for easy pickings.

With another wave already on the way, Helena checked her belt to find three flash grenades left. They were quite effective, but she knew she would have to use them sparingly.

Sera fired, aiming high near the top of the sac and yelled, "They're coming out of the hive!"

"They're coming out of everywhere!" Helena shouted back in annoyance as the novistadores began to swarm them both.

This was bad. Sera was barely coping with his handgun, and she was going to run out of ammo soon if she kept using her Hydra.

She shot through two at once with her shotgun as they came at her, then reached for one of the hand grenades on her belt. Blasting off the head of another, she tossed the grenade upwards, targeting the top of the sac where it hung from the ceiling on some kind of protruding support. It exploded, striking down nearby novistadores, but it barely damaged the hive, causing it to release a large swarm of the flying beasts instead.

"Shit," Helena groaned, hastily retreating back from the hive on the reload.

As half of the swarm began to cloak, she grabbed Sera's arm on her way back and easily killed off his target without stopping. Sera gasped, glancing back in her direction when he saw the new horde pouring from the sac opening above.

"Agent Harper, what have you done!"

"Shut up," Helena snapped, reaching for another flash grenade from her belt. "Do you still have ammo?"

"Starting to run low," Sera said as he reloaded his gun.

Helena fired at two novistadores close to them and threw the flash grenade, stunning the rest. She immediately followed it up with a hand grenade to the scattered swarm, then an incendiary grenade aimed at the ones nearby, killing most of them. Taking advantage of the breathing room, she thrust her Hydra at Sera's chest along with the rest of the ammunition she had.

"Here. Don't you fucking lose my Hydra," she growled, barely willing to give her prized Hydra away - even to be borrowed - but they would get nowhere without Sera providing adequate backup for her.

"You need not worry, Agent Harper," Sera said, being agreeable for once as he carefully stashed his Red9. "I'll take good care of her."

He raised the shotgun to an approaching novistador and fired, the single shot sending both him and the beast flying back. He squawked, almost tripping into the hole himself from the recoil.

"Careful!" Helena snapped, reaching for her Picador.

"Yes, yes," Sera responded affably, gingerly rubbing his hand and gripping her Hydra with both hands this time. "She's, ah, got quite a bite to her, I see. Feisty, like her mistress."

"Just cover me," Helena ordered, ignoring him.

There was a faint ripple of movement to her side where the air seemed to distort for a moment, briefly revealing a blurry pair of glowing blue eyes. She fired twice, killing the incoming novistador while it was still invisible.

Unlatching another grenade from her belt, she moved along the small side path circling around the room until she reached a full view of the hive. Novistadores continued to emerge from it through slitted openings, as soon as one crawled out, another immediately followed. The hive shook and pulsated, bloated with novistadores and steadily producing more.

They were going to be overwhelmed soon, it was only a matter of time. Their only hope was to get rid of the hive, to destroy the source.

Pulling the pin on her hand grenade, she flung it at the hive's protuberance attached to the ceiling, her aim and timing perfect. The top gave way by a foot, barely an impact when the protuberance was nearly eight feet wide. She reached for another grenade with her Picador in hand, picking some novistadores off Sera before throwing the explosive.

Six more feet to go, three grenades left, and they were starting to get swarmed again. She opened fire at the novistadores, knowing her accuracy would be hindered with so many in the way and she couldn't risk missing.

"Having some trouble here, Agent Harper!" Sera called out.

Helena threw another flash grenade, bringing down most of the wave, incapacitated, for Sera to finish off. They couldn't keep doing this, she wasn't sure they could even survive another wave. They were both running out of ammo and she had one flash grenade left.

Leaving him to deal with the remaining BOWs, she took the opportunity to use the rest of her hand grenades on the protuberance, unhindered. Three explosions later, the sac hung haphazardly, the protuberance half split away from the top. Gravity was taking effect, as Helena saw the support peeling back slowly under the weight of the pulsing hive, but not nearly fast enough. Another wave of novistadores was already on the way.

Reloading her Picador with her last available clip, she took careful aim and starting shooting at the peeling edge of the hive. It was depressingly slow work; and all the while, more novistadores poured out. More than once, she had to retrain her fire on those approaching instead. With Sera backing her from the middle of the field, her mind was on the one flash grenade she had left.

Hearing a buzz nearby, she turned, finding one of the novistadores surging towards her. She raised her gun to shoot, but it reared back and struck her with a hard kick, throwing her against the wall and racing after her. She barely dodged in time as its mouth gaped open - not to bite, but to spew up vomit that literally melted through the door and floor.

_Acid again. Ugh._

With her Picador's final clip exhausted on her last assailant, Helena switched to her own Red9, shooting rapidly with the less effective gun. Her aim switched between the novistadores and the hive, which now only hung by two feet.

"Come on, damn it," Helena grunted in frustration.

The heavy sac lurched down, inch by inch, faster now with the great mass of the hive weighing down the weakening protuberance.

"Sera, get away from the center!" she hollered after him in case the sac fell on and broke away the ground under it.

Sera hurried away quickly. Helena threw her last flash grenade to cover him as her Red9 ran out of ammo. She holstered it and pulled out Smith's sidearm to take out the stunned ones lying too far from the hive's impact area. With the material giving way, the sac disconnected completely from its protuberance.

Helena rushed to Sera as the hive came crashing down. Luckily, it dropped sideways, one end colliding partway onto the platform before the rest of it slid off the ledge. The novistadores fell with the hive, the buzzing mass of them sticking together instead of flying away.

When they could no longer hear the inhuman wails, Helena looked over the edge, seeing no trace of the hive or the novistadores in the depths of the cavity.

* * *

As she and Sera checked the novistadores' bodies to make sure all of the BOWs were dead, a call suddenly came through on her handheld. She grabbed it quickly, talking before an image even showed.

"Hunnigan, Ashley's been-"

"Taken? I know," came the response spoken in Spanish, Salazar's face appearing instead of Hunnigan's. "Do not worry, Agent Harper, no harm will come her, she's being taken to our lord as we speak. However, I'm afraid I can't say the same for you and Luis. In fact, I will personally make sure that you two suffer and are-"

Helena cut the call, swearing viciously. Ashley was gone. Ada was gone. Hunnigan was out of reach. She had no grenades and barely any ammo. She had not used the sniper rifle at all during the fight, but even that had only twenty rounds and there was half a castle and Salazar to go through before she could get to Ashley.

She grabbed Sera by the front of his shirt, just in case he was thinking of running off.

"You said we had to hurry to get to your machine. Why?"

"That is actually nothing more than a hunch, Agent Harper," he said meeting her deadly stare, he didn't fight her off or struggle. "I've designed a laser that emits a special radiation to kill the plaga. On the few tests I managed to run, I was not able to destroy a fully matured plaga without killing the host as well. We must get you both to my machine before the plaga reaches maturation. The operation is dangerous and very painful regardless, but I believe the younger the plaga, the higher your chances of surviving it."

"How much time does she have?" Helena asked, her grip on Sera's shirt easing.

"It's hard to say, Agent Harper. Was it just recently that she started coughing up blood?"

"Yes, about half an hour after I found her in the church."

"I would give it maybe ten hours, taking into account the drugs-"

Another call came through, interrupting Sera. Helena answered it, not surprised to see Salazar's angry little face again.

"You boorish American! Are you so pretentious that you would come to this country without understanding a word of-"

She disconnected the call, calmly turning to Sera, who was staring at her strangely.

"What?" she grunted.

Before Sera could answer, Salazar called again.

"The gall of you!" the castellan cried in broken English. "Must I stoop myself to your pedestrian tongue to-"

She sneered at him, disconnecting again and ignoring his next attempts. She looked at Sera, raising an eyebrow at the look on his face.

"You hung up on him, three times," Sera said without prompting, looking like he was trying not to laugh. "That boy must be throwing quite the trantrum right now, he's unaccustomed to not having his way."

"You said Ashley had ten hours?" Helena asked, the girl her only concern.

Sera nodded, wisely minding the severity of the moment.

"More if she manages to take another dose of the medicine."

"She has the bottle," Helena murmured, she remembered handing it to Ashley after they had eaten. "Do you think they'll search her?" she asked, and as another thought occurred, "Do they have a way of accelerating the plaga growth?"

"There are several ways, yes, but they would result in severe mutations like the BOWs we just encountered," Sera said. "Saddler is simply waiting for the plaga to mature, I'm sure. As for searching Ms. Graham, it's very likely. Saddler's men are guerillas, not villagers, they'll surely check her for bugs."

"There's one hidden in my jacket," she told him, unclipping the tracking device on her utility belt to check it. Her eyes widened when she saw the screen. "She's not far. If we go now, maybe we can catch her before-"

"Agent Harper," Sera called, reaching for her arm to stop her. "Salazar must have the rest of the castle heavily guarded. We barely have any firepower on our side, going out there would be suicide."

"What, you have a better idea?" she snapped, freeing her arm from his grip. "We're not going to find ammo just lying around."

"We're not," Sera agreed, looking at her meaningfully, "but we know someone who has that sort of inventory and is willing to part with it for the right price, or the right trade."

Helena scowled, impatient.

"We're not going to find any rubies just lying around, either."

"Not rubies, no," Sera chuckled, then began to walk towards the remains of the novistadores. "The merchant is quite taken with treasure, and by treasure, I mean anything that looks shiny enough." With a knife, he extracted the triangular-shaped eyes of the creature and held it up to her. "Shiny like these."

Helena stared at the strange eyes, admitting that they had a convincing gleam. It was a little off putting how casually Sera went about plucking out the eyes of something that used to be human.

 _And something so disgusting,_ said a voice in her head, sounding like Ada's musical lilt.

"A little help, Agent Harper?" Sera asked pleasantly, having already taken two pairs of eyes.

Shaking her head to disperse the voice, Helena pulled out her own knife and went to join Sera.

* * *

"This better work," Helena was grumbling moments later, a handful of green, red and blue novistador eyes in her hands.

"Trust me, Agent Harper, I've known the merchant longer than you, and I have never shot him," Sera gently quipped, chuckling when she shot him a look. "I also managed to find a few things on my way here," he added, opening his pack and removing the plastic bag filled with food.

Helena looked into the pack, seeing over a dozen shiny red ores and half as many blue crystals. Among the loot, she identified a golden mask with two gems in its divots, a mirror set with pearls and rubies, and an hourglass with gold decor.

"A few things," she repeated, her tone flat.

"It's no fault of mine if the castellan leaves his valuables unattended, Agent Harper," Sera said, winking at her.

"Now we just have to hope he shows up in the next room," Helena muttered, throwing the novistador eyes in with the rest of Sera's loot as he did the same.

"No need for that, Agent Harper," Sera assured her, stuffing the food back in on top and zipping his pack up. "He set up shop in the room with the king and queen grails."

"That room is locked," Helena said, remembering she had checked it.

Sera grinned and showed her a key.

"Not to a loyal, paying customer, Agent Harper."

"How the hell does he get around," Helena wondered out loud, making Sera laugh.

"I've learned long ago to stop questioning his methods, Agent Harper. It helps keep me sane."

They headed back through the first set of double doors, Sera stopping just as they stepped into the hallway. Helena followed his gaze, noticing the balcony accessible through the large window.

"Did you see something?" she asked, pulling out her Picador as she cursed her inattentiveness.

"Oh, no, nothing like that, Agent Harper," Sera said, heading to the window. "I do, however, think there may be something up there. Give me a moment."

Helena followed him to the balcony, still armed with her Picador. She stood guard as Sera climbed the ladder on the wall, not quite believing they were as safe as he thought. He returned shortly, proudly presenting a lamp with butterfly motifs.

"And look!" he exclaimed, showing her three notches found on the lamp. "I think we can fit the eyes here. One of each color, yes?"

"Why," Helena mumbled, unable to summon the effort to make it sound like a question.

"The shinier, the better, Agent Harper!" Sera responded enthusiastically.

Helena watched as Sera took out an eye of each color and slid them into the lamp's notches.

"Aha, see that! He'll love it!"

"Can we go now?" she asked, not even looking at his handiwork.

"Of course," Sera happily obliged. "Maybe we'll find more shiny things for our friend on the way, yes?"

* * *

By the time they reached the merchant, Sera found four more of the red ores, three more of the blue crystals, a green gem that fit in the divot of the golden mask and an expensive-looking chessboard.

"Now remember, Agent Harper," Sera said, "be nice."

"Just open the damn door," Helena barked.

Unperturbed, Luis smiled and obliged. They entered a small, corner alcove where a familiar, cloaked figure stood behind a makeshift table, guns and ammunition laid out upon it. More firearm pieces hung from hooks on the wall behind him, and a little shelf nearby housed an array of grenades. His stock still wasn't nearly as lavish as the array in the cabin had been, but he seemed to have replenished his supplies somewhere along the route from his last location to this one. The small room furnished with a few barrels really was quite a fitting corner.

"Ahh, welcome stranger-"

The happy merchant's greeting faltered noticeably at the sight of Helena following in with Sera. He quickly grabbed a piece from under the large wooden stand he was using as a table. He didn't raise the gun, but kept it there on the table as a safety measure, just in case.

"Strangers," he said, back to his cheerful self. "Welcome! What can I help you with today?"

"We're looking to trade," Sera told him straight off the bat like they were old friends. "Got a lot of shiny things for you today, my friend."

As Helena and Sera approached with the loot they had collected, the merchant's red, gleaming eyes grew big staring at the gems, but as soon as he saw the lamp fitted with novistador eyes, his full attention was captured.

"Ahh," the merchant droned, fascinated, and held out his hands for it in want. "Let me see it."

Sera obligingly handed the lamp over and cast Helena a sideways smile.

"Ahh," the merchant droned again, seemingly mesmerized with it, gun and precaution completely forgotten. "The red, green, and blue eyes, I see," he went on as he stared at the lamp for a long moment, completely taken with the piece until Sera cleared his throat, reminding the dazed merchant that he was not alone.

The merchant's glinting red eyes finally looked back up to Sera, full of happiness, which was still unsettling to see in those eerie eyes.

"I'll buy it for a high price!" he exclaimed.

"I told you he would buy it, yes?" Sera said, practically sniggered in triumph.

Helena glared at him, not appreciating the gloating.

One by one, the merchant went through their treasure and gave value to each of their items. When he reached the mask decorated with gems, his glowing eyes lit up further with joy, as they had with the lamp.

"A prize!" he said as he held it up, gazing at it in awe. "Of all the spinels, eyes, and velvet blues you have brought me, strangers, this is a prize."

"Spinels? Velvet blues?" Helena asked, knowing which was which but curious about the names.

"Local names for the gems," Sera explained as the merchant continued to go through the rest of their loot.

"Ahh, this chessboard," the merchant said after another moment, picking up the bulky, golden board Sera had insisted they take, even after Helena had threatened to hit him over the head with it. "The way it gleams!"

Sera looked at her with a wide grin, tempting her again to smash his face with the shiny chessboard.

"And there's more," the merchant murmured, holding the jeweled mirror close to his chest contentedly. "You've brought me so much treasure, strangers."

"That we have, my friend," Sera said, laying out the last of their finds, which included a few more gems and a golden, decorated hourglass.

"Yes, yes, what a lovely hourglass. What'll you have, stranger?"

"We need ammunition," Sera said, taking the lead, "lots of it, as much as you have. We need it for the rifle, all our handguns, and a shotgun."

"10 gauge shells," Helena interjected before he could grab the wrong ones. "Not 12 gauge."

"Of course, of course," the merchant complied, familiar enough with Sera's guns to grab the right ammunition straight away, but needing more specifics for hers. "Anything else?" he asked anxiously, his eyes fixated on their treasure.

"Grenades," Sera added next. "We'll take as many as we can carry, with a preference for flash grenades."

"Yes, yes," the merchant obliged, happily bringing over the whole rack of explosives. Spying the way Helena analyzed one of his guns on the table, he moved over to it eagerly. "See something you like, stranger? This one?" he asked, picking up the Broken Butterfly magnum she had been eyeing and holding it out to present it to her. "Easy to use, quick trigger, and the most powerful magnum you've ever touched, I guarantee. Very rare. Very powerful."

"And expensive?" Helena wagered, judging by the greed in his eyes as he kept glancing over their prizes.

"Of course," the merchant confirmed easily, "but you can afford it, stranger, with the mask and mirror…" he trailed off, his eyes flittered over to admire said pieces, "and the lamp with the shiny gems. I'll even include the ammo!"

"Agent Harper, you don't need one of those," Sera told her offhandedly as he counted out their grenades and boxes of ammo.

"And why the hell not?" Helena snapped, annoyed that he was deciding for her.

"Not unless you like doubles," Sera said, holding up a Broken Butterfly of his own.

"Where did you get that?"

"Found it," Sera told her with a wink, "in one of those chests I checked as I was on my way to meet you."

"Well, I don't have one," she grumbled, hating how childish it made her seem.

"Oh, but you could, Agent Harper!" Sera offered eagerly, like he had been waiting for the opportunity. "You could have this one, yes?" he said, making her wonder if this was the reason he kept the magnum a secret from her. "Well, not have, more like a trade," he corrected himself when she just stared at him suspiciously, knowing there was a catch. "The Broken Butterfly for my Red9."

"Your what?"

"My gun, Agent Harper. You have still not given her back to me."

"You already have a Red9," she pointed out.

"Yes, I have a Red9, but it is not my Red9," he pointed out. "I'll trade that in as well, if you'd like."

"Ohh," the merchant chimed in while running his fingers idly over the chessboard. "That's a smart trade, stranger. A very smart trade, yes."

"What's with you and this gun?" Helena muttered, slipping the Red9 out of her shoulder strap. She wanted that magnum. "Keep the other one," she told him, already armed to the teeth. "I have no room."

Sera looked at her, and what a sight she must have made. She had her Picador and now the Broken Butterfly on her shoulder holsters, her Hydra on a leg holster, the sniper rifle strapped across her chest and Smith's sidearm tucked in her belt at the back, while the empty TMP was awkwardly at her side. She hated that one, it always dug painfully into her side. She was pretty sure she was bruised up from it.

"That is no understatement, Agent Harper," Sera agreed as he took back his Red9 and cradled it to his chest. "Ah, mi amor."

Helena shook her head at the ridiculous sight and turned to the merchant.

"Throw in all the magnum ammo you have."

"I shall, I shall," The merchant eagerly complied. "There is not much of it, so go sparingly, stranger." The merchant looked to Sera, who was still cradling his Red9, and asked, "Might your companion be interested in the other magnum now, hmm?"

"No," she said, seeing what little ammo there was available for the magnum. "We have all we need."

The merchant's eyes widened, panicked as he looked down at the loot that had yet to be traded.

"S-surely there's something else!" he blurted, reaching for more items to tempt them. "A flak jacket, perhaps? A new combat blade? Very sharp! A spare TMP for your companion, maybe?"

"No," Helena said again, finding the flak jacket interesting but refusing to sacrifice any more of her mobility. "We're done."

"Well, you heard the lady, my friend," Sera chimed, finally putting away his Red9. "That's it for us. I think our trade total comes up a little short, eh?" he said, starting to take back some of the pieces, including the decorated mask, mirror and hourglass.

The merchant's face started to fall in despair, but when Sera started to reach for the chessboard, Helena held out a hand.

"Leave that," she told him. "It's too big. The lamp, too."

Nodding, Sera separated some of the spinels, eyes, and velvet blues they'd collected and pulled them back in his pack.

"That still seems more than enough, no?"

"Sera…" Helena started in warning, seeing the miscellaneous jewels, he wanted to keep, along with the three expensive pieces.

"And the mask," the merchant said, longing eyes on it as Sera started to bag up the rest of his things.

"No mask," Sera told the merchant, shaking his head. "There's more than enough there," he pointed out, scooping the rest of the jewels back into his backpack as the merchant watched with dawning pain in his eyes.

"Bu-but you must want-"

"No," Helena cut in harshly, his insistent pleading really starting to annoy her.

"I'll get RPGs!" the merchant suddenly claimed, drawing back Helena's eyes. "The next time you see me," he promised eagerly, "I'll have RPGs, and we can barter more, yes?"

Helena paused, wondering where and how the merchant was hiding his inventory from Salazar. She was beginning to see that Sera seemed to have the right idea about not questioning the merchant's means.

"You do that and we'll have more business," she said.

"Yes!" the merchant cried, happy. "Yes, I will do that. I will see you in just a little while, yes? Yes, yes. Good business, good business," he droned on as he sorted through their exchanges. "The 10 gauge shells you requested, stranger."

Helena brought out her Hydra to double check. They were a perfect match, but now her attention was on the merchant, whose eyes suddenly lit up at the sight of her weapon.

"Ooh," he cooed, showing too much interest for her liking. "That is a shiny weapon, stranger."

"It's not for sale," Helena snapped immediately, grasping her Hydra protectively.

"Perhaps a trade?" the merchant asked, undeterred. "I could trade you a better shotgun for that piece!"

"No."

"Are you sure, stranger?" the merchant pressed, hand moving over a bulky, round-loaded shotgun. "This is a Striker. It holds twenty-four rounds. No need to reload in the midst of battle. Brand new!"

"No," Helena growled again, holstering her favorite weapon.

The merchant watched her put it away, his gaze growing pained once more.

"But… what- _two_ Strikers!" he insisted, pulling out a second, identical shotgun from under his counter. "You may each have one for the price of one weapon!"

"I said no."

"What is it with you and that gun?" Sera asked her, turning her own question against her.

She scowled at him but he wasn't even looking her way, his eyes on the weapons on the table that the merchant had just brought out.

"You know, I could probably use some more firepower, Agent Harper," he admitted, gesturing at his two Red9s.

"Take this," she said, handing him the TMP, happy to be rid of it.

Sera blinked in surprise and took the weapon, then looked at Helena suspiciously.

"Are you buying another gun?"

"You should be!" the merchant spoke up, seeing a chance to make another sale. "For you, sir! This shotgun will hold back any enemies. Surely, you need a powerful weapon as well? To match that of your... lady friend's."

"I'm not his lady friend," Helena said, unamused.

"To match that of your lady's," the merchant rephrased, only tempting her to shoot him again.

"It might be an idea," Sera said, then looked to her. "What do you think, Agent Harper?"

"If you want to lug it around, go ahead," Helena grumbled back, moody, "but I'm not sharing ammo."

"No problem at all, stranger!" the merchant assured them, his eyes lighting up on Sera's bag again. "These take 12 gauge shells. See? See?"

"All right," Sera agreed, strapping the TMP to his side. "We'll take one of those as well with all your ammo for it."

"Yes, yes," the merchant murmured happily. "For the hourglass and mask!"

"The hourglass and gems," Luis bargained firmly with the man, and added, "I will save the mask and mirror for those RPGs you'll get, my friend."

"You'll have to collect more than that," the merchant grumbled, but agreed to the trade for the shotgun and its ammo. "But we shall trade, stranger. Bring out the treasures."

Helena fixed the new grenades to her belt as Sera negotiated for the extra piece. When he had finished up, he was armed with four guns in total.

"There we go," Sera said, slinging the shotgun across his back in a strap the merchant had provided with it. "We're more evenly equipped now."

Helena nodded briefly at him, already standing impatiently at the door. They had spent more than enough time here while Ashley was waiting.

* * *

Back where the novistador hive was mounted, the area was now unsettlingly quiet. They crossed the remaining pathway beyond the scattered novistador carcasses to reach a lever mounted starkly on the wall.

"This should lower the bridge," Sera said, nodding at the double doors they had to access.

He pulled the lever and the bridge began to drop, but the chains snagged on to the supports they looped through, still holding up the bridge.

"Jammed the links. I suppose we should have expected that," Sera remarked, sighing.

Helena scowled at the bridge, pulling out her Picador and aiming at the old, weathered block of wood that held up one of the supports.

"Agent Harper, if you're going to do that, wouldn't it be better to-"

She fired twice, interrupting him, taking out the first support and putting even more strain on the remaining one. She shot it once, and the bridge came crashing down, the ground shaking upon impact.

"- to snipe it," Sera finished lamely as the dust settled. "That works, too."

"Let's go." Helena grunted, not wanting to waste any more time here.

She and Sera crossed the bridge without another word. They left the cavernous area and continued on through the castle, passing an array of decorated halls. Strangely, they ran into no resistance along the way, which was only making Helena feel more uneasy.

Soon, they were outside the castle, standing before a long, stone pathway facing a tall tower that ran up. The bridge only faced their way, a problem as they had to get to the other platform up to their right and reach those doors.

Sera eyed up the colossal tower of stone.

"Hmm. This turns, Agent Harper."

"What?" she blurted, wondering if she had heard right.

"This platform," Sera said, apparently serious. "I have never done it myself, but this bridge is supposed to turn so we can reach the other tower. The control mechanism should be in the tower ahead."

"Great," Helena muttered darkly. "More puzzles."

"It could be worse, yes?" he countered brightly, grinning.

Helena ignored him, starting up a set of stone stairs around the left of it. The walk wasn't terrible, kind of refreshing, actually, when they weren't being attacked and hunted down. Around the side of the tower, there was a rail that overlooked what would have been a beautiful view of the castle if she had an ounce of appreciation left to rounded the bend of the railing to a set of wooden doors on the other side and entered it.

The inside looked like what Helena expected a clock tower would look like. Large gears sat unmoving on the path right before them. It continued up for quite a ways, the levers and gears looking old and ancient in this stone-enclosed place. Another railing lined every level as it went up. A ladder on a small platform led up to the top of the tower, lit by torches on the way up.

"After you," Sera said, letting her be the first to take the old-looking ladder up top.

She started to climb. It was a short enough way up, separated by two different platforms of ladders circling the tower before she reached the end of the hall at the top where another giant lever sat.

"Let's hope this lever is more useful," he commented as she gripped it in both hands, and with a great feat of strength, pulled it.

Gears started to turn and chains rattled with rusty movement. The sound of resistant stone reverberated around them. It had worked.

"Excellent! Now we wait," Sera said, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. "If I only had a cigarette…" he trailed off, chuckling, and it was amazing how the man could relax at the drop of a hat.

Helena looked at him, taking a moment before speaking.

"Tell me what you know about Ada."

Sera turned to her, at first looking surprised then mellowing quickly.

"I was wondering when you'd bring that up again, Agent Harper. Silly of me to think you've forgotten," he said, shaking his head in amusement. "Though, it seems to me she likes you more than she likes me, she never even told me her name."

"That's not what I'm asking," Helena rumbled, and Sera was quick to raise his hands in peace.

"Just thought it was something you would have liked to know, Agent Harper," he explained, crossing his arms again and looking away, his mood sobering. "Days before Ms. Graham was taken, I sent out an email to old colleague, seeking his help. Your... Ms. Ada turned up instead, telling me that, in exchange for a master plaga sample, she'll take me away from here. I'd have my freedom, my ties with Saddler and the work I had done for him not questioned."

"Master plaga sample?" Helena echoed, wanting to understand Ada's interest in it.

Sera nodded, his expression now serious.

"It's a dominant-strain, a subspecies of plaga that does not compromise the host's consciousness. Mendez, the Big Cheese, Salazar and even Saddler himself are infected with this strain. I haven't seen it for myself, but its mutations would be far more extreme, far more dangerous than that of the subordinate-strain."

"They are," Helena said, seeing Sera look at her in question. "The village chief changed when I fought him, it was nothing like what I've seen from the villagers or the zealots."

"I see," Sera murmured, then slowly began to smile. "You know this and yet you continue to taunt Salazar, Agent Harper?"

Helena snorted.

"I wasn't taunting him, he annoyed me."

Sera laughed.

"Does that mean I don't annoy you, Agent Harper?"

"Don't push it," she muttered, narrowing her eyes at him. "Why does Ada want the sample? Who does she work for?"

"My guess is as good as yours, Agent Harper," Sera replied, sighing.

"You don't know but you still made a deal with her?" Helena asked, for the first time wondering if he was as smart as he claimed.

"I can't exactly afford to be picky, Agent Harper," Sera said, smiling slightly. "But it doesn't matter anymore. I'm no longer of use to her. I lost the sample when I was making my way to you."

"Lost," Helena grunted, not believing a word of it, and Sera's smile only grew.

"That was a bad lie, wasn't it? Ah, if you must know, I was cornered- caught, really, and so I threw away the sample to distract them and escaped. With that, I terminated my contract with your Ms. Ada and that is why she left."

"You were supposed to meet her in this castle?"

"Not exactly. I met up with her earlier, after we were attacked in the cabin. They had taken the sample I had when they captured us, so I had to get another for her. Luckily, I had another hidden away, but I told her she would not get it until I helped you and Ms. Graham. She knew being around you were her best chances of seeing me again, the smart woman."

Helena's eyes narrowed, noticing that Sera was now avoiding her gaze.

"You could have just given her the sample and you'd be free now. Why are you helping us? Why did you send that anonymous tip about Ashley? You'll be arrested if you go with me."

Sera shrugged unconvincingly.

"It seems I'm not as bad a cop as I thought I was. But let's not dwell on this, hm? This tower is taking its time. Shall we have a drink and something to eat, Agent Harper?"

Helena nodded, respecting that Sera wanted to change the subject. He handed her a water bottle and food from his pack and they drank and ate in companionable silence. She went about it absently, her thoughts on Ada Wong.

"This doesn't explain why she saved me from the chief," she said, more to herself than Sera.

"Again, Agent Harper, your guess is as good as mine," Sera remarked. "Maybe you're a useful distraction, maybe she wants Ms. Graham saved as well," he paused to take a drink, then grinned at her, "or maybe she just likes you, hm?"

"More than you," she added.

"More than me."

"She thinks you're a vagrant, of course she likes me more."

"There is that."

* * *

"Come on," Helena said when the gears slowed to a screeching halt. She stood and took her snack with her, downing one more swig of water before carrying on, more out of necessity than thirst. "Let's go. We can still catch up to Ashley."

Sera nodded, getting to his feet.

"Lead the way, Agent Harper."

Making their way down the tower and out of it, they again found no enemies lying in wait. They crossed the wooden bridge and stopped before the steel set of double doors that lead into the next tower.

"I have a bad feeling about this," she muttered.

"Don't jinx us now, Agent Harper," Sera quipped.

Weapons at the ready, they each began to open a door, her on the left, him on the right.

"Intruders!" one of two zealots yelled as they entered the tower.

Behind the zealots, two tall, nearly identical men in chains looked up, their actions synchronized. The chains were wrapped around their necks and metal headgear, looking more hindering than protective. One of the two was barechested while the other appeared to be crudely suited in armor, but the features that stood out the most were their eyes, closed and stitched shut.

The same zealot yelled again, and this time, both blind men snapped to attention. Together, they forcefully dropped their arms at their sides, slipping free the massive steel claws attached to their handguards.

The other zealot ran back over to a wall in the small room and pulled a lever. Behind them and at the doors up ahead, bars came down and locked into place.

"It appears you have jinxed us, Agent Harper."

"Shut up," Helena growled and pulled free her magnum.

"Straight ahead!" the noisy zealot cried frantically in Spanish. "They're straight ahead at the door! Get them! Get them!"

The blind men roared and attacked, the barechested one lunging right at the zealot while the other started waving about his arms madly, cutting up not just the air in front of him, but also the zealot's back. The zealot screamed out, in anger, not pain.

"Not me! Not me, you brute!"

With the blind men now coming at them, Helena and Sera split up, running to opposite corners of the room. The armored one charged towards her and thrust his claw forward. She dodged it and rolled away, blinking at the sight of the him now struggling to yank his arm free, as he apparently struck the wall with such force and power his claws got lodged in.

"Garradores, Agent Harper!" Sera called from across the room, pulling out his new shotgun, but had to turn it on the lever zealot who'd picked up a crossbow off the floor. "Shoot the plaga on their backs!"

The barechested garrador looked up at the noise as a bloody, pus-covered corpse fell to the ground- and started writhing. Helena almost groaned as she did a quick trade, fixing her Picador's silencer onto the magnum. The bare-chested Garrador went for Sera, who squeaked.

"Damn it," Helena cursed when the armored garrador got free, losing her chance for an easy shot at the plaga.

"I'm shutting up now if you don't mind, Agent Harper!" Sera hastily said, ducking under a swipe that could've taken his head off.

Helena lost focus on Sera as the armored garrador ran her way, arms swinging madly in frantic attempt to cut her up. Its swipes actually made noise as it passed through the air, so hard and fast, she had no doubt it'd cleave her. The garrador was easy enough to avoid as she darted to the right of the pillar on her side, but her effort to evade his claws ended up with an arrow to the shoulder from the crossbow zealot.

She jerked mid-step, more startled than injured as the arrowhead sunk into the side shoulder of her gun arm. It must not have gone deep because it didn't hurt much, but it was enough to take her off guard and yelp in surprise and grab for it.

"Agent Harper!" Sera called out in concern, then had his own garrador to deal with.

The garrador behind her looked up. Worse yet, the zealot on the floor began to convulse, head snapping back to unveil the bloated, insect-like plaga type ripping free of his neck.

Quickly snapping the shaft sticking out of her shoulder, Helena fired the silenced magnum and darted past it as the plaga squealed. Another arrow was fired, this time barely missing her head. She was grateful to see Sera gunning down the zealot with the crossbow, but her relief was short lived when she heard the familiar sound of plaga erupting from its host.

"Fuck," Helena groaned under her breath, dashing up the steps to get some distance.

A dozen soft-padded footsteps tapped the ground behind her. She whirled to find a spider-like plaga erupting from the stump of a neck, a whole creature had separated from the body, which lay dead on the ground a few feet away.

"What the fuck!" Helena couldn't stop the cry of exasperation as she shot at it with the magnum, and missed.

The plaga skittered fast, upon her before she expected. She backed up, startled at how quick it followed, and pulled her Hydra with her free hand to blast the creature's head, which exploded into pus, but the legs still twitched. She kicked it away where it hit the far wall and finally went still.

Down on the lower platform, without a silencer to his weapon, Sera was having more trouble with the two garradores and another of the spider-like plaga, which had also disconnected from its host.

"Sera!" Helena yelled out, simultaneously drawing the garradores' attention and unhooking a flash grenade from her belt. "Cover your eyes!" she said, pulling the pin out with her teeth and tossing the flash grenade.

As the plaga shriveled, the garradores charged at her. The barechested one suddenly stopped and cried out in pain, the plaga on its back reacting when Luis shot it. Helena avoided their pathway as the armored garrador came swinging, followed by the other garrador, who had recovered from the shot. Backing away from the spot back down the left side of the stairs, she saw the plaga attached to the barechested garrador's back a moment before he met up the same path as the armored garrador and swung at him.

At the touch of something hitting him, the armored garrador turned wildly and started to swing back. Metal clashed as their claws connected, their faces left scratched and bleeding until claws interlocked in a strength war against each other.

Helena softly stepped over to Sera, careful to be quiet.

"I think they're doing our job, eh?" Sera said with a grin, encouraged.

With the the garradores still interlocked by the claws, Helena raised both her Hydra and the Broken Butterfly and fired. The Garradores howled in pain, flailing and spinning in circles in an attempt to hide their plagas, but it didn't even make her pause. She pulled the trigger on both guns, hitting both of the garradores' plagas. The garradores fell together in a heap, one on top of the other.

Helena took a couple of steps towards fallen garradores to examine their bodies, then shot each with the magnum to be certain. She reloaded both of guns before holstering the magnum, then glanced back to Sera, who was stared her wide-eyed.

"What?"

"Ah, Agent Harper…" was all Sera managed to say, in between clearing his throat nervously.

"What?" she demanded, irritated with his fumbling for words. "We have to keep moving. Stop standing there like an idiot."

"Agent Harper, your shoulder!" Sera finally exclaimed, approaching her and grabbing her wrist.

Helena glanced down, finding the arrowhead and part of a shaft still lodged just below where her right shoulder and arm met. She had forgotten about it.

"It's not bad," she said, tugging her wrist free. "I can barely feel it."

"It's bad," Sera insisted, his fingers closing over the remainder of the shaft. "Brace yourself. I'll wrap this," he said and waited for her go ahead, then pulled out the arrowhead, which had a longer shaft than Helena thought, covered in blood mostly where it'd been in her arm. "That's deep," Sera pointed out, holding the arrow head for her to take while he reached in his pack for some wrap.

Helena frowned at the arrow half.

"It didn't feel like it."

"That's not necessarily a good thing, Agent Harper," Sera told her, beginning to tend to her. "The wound is bad, and you can barely feel it. You're either very tough, or more realistically, the plaga is… growing..." he trailed off, glancing back at one of the dead guys on the floor.

Helena's eyes followed him. Plaga hosts didn't feel pain, like the way she barely felt anything but a slight tickle on her arm.

"Oh," she mumbled, shifting her eyes away.

If she was starting to lose her pain sensory already, how far along was Ashley? She hoped she was right that the plaga in the girl wasn't maturing nearly as fast.

"We should hurry," she said, eyeing Sera at her arm. "Are you done?"

"One moment…" Sera responded distractedly, nearly finished. "There! That should hold for now, but you'll need antibiotics. That'll get infected without."

"Fat chance we'll find any," Helena grumbled, not liking this turn. She really could barely feel anything different on that arm. It was concerning.

Sera offered her a small smile as she pulled the lever back, pulling up the bars over the doors.

"We'll get you there, Agent Harper."

"Not by standing around, we won't," she said, signalling him over with a wave of her hand. "Come on. Let's get Ashley out of here and fixed up."

"Yes, let's," Sera agreed, right behind her.

* * *

"Ashley's nearby," Helena said after checking the tracking device.

"Strange. I thought they'd be farther by now," Sera remarked.

"Yeah," she murmured in agreement, then put the device away.

They climbed the long stairs up to a second and third platform. When they opened the door ahead, it was to find that the stairs continued in a long, lavish carpeted hallway. The next set of double doors at the top was adorned with a golden trim, decorated bars over it.

"There's no room behind this one, Agent Harper."

She dropped a hand to rest on the trusty hilt of her Hydra, then pulled the familiar grip free of its sheath.

"Be ready," she warned, happy to see Sera pulling free his Red9s as she backed against the door, ready to step in and fling it open with her foot.

She looked at him and nodded once to confirm it, then she kicked the door hard with her heel to whirl in.

As it turned out, the grand hall before them, complete with a throne at the head of it on a raised platform, was empty. Empty but for one thing Helena spotted immediately in the middle of the floor on the grand carpet in the room. She rushed towards it, holstering her weapon.

"What is it?" Sera asked as he ran after her.

"My jacket. I gave it to Ashley to wear," she said, picking it up and examining it for blood stains.

She found a rip near the shoulder where they might've torn the jacket off her. Were they being rough with Ashley? She would kill them.

She started to stand as Sera came up behind her when suddenly, she was falling and Sera with her. She had only a second to realize the floor had somehow dropped out from underneath them before she reacted.

She dropped the jacket as she reached for the back of her utility belt. She pulled out her grappling hook, far inferior to Ada's grapple gun but serviceable, if only once. She flung the hook with as much strength as she could muster, hoping it would reach the lip of the opening.

"Sera!" she yelled, making a grab for him and latching onto his forearm as the long cord continued to unravel.

_Come on, come on!_

Sera yelped, grabbing her arm with his free hand as they plummeted, the ground drawing up dangerously close.

"Agent Harper!"

"Shut up, Sera," she snapped, eyes on the hook as it snagged on to the lip, then promptly slipped. "Damn it!" she cursed out loud and then a dozen more different ways in her head when the hook started to scrape along the walls.

"This is gonna hurt," Sera remarked needlessly, clinging to her arm like it could somehow save him if he hung on tight enough.

When all the angry, frustrated swearing was done, the only thing left in Helena's mind was her sister Deborah, but before she could dwell on the what ifs, a sudden, strong yank of resistance almost had the handle of the grappling hook slipping through her fingers.

Her injured shoulder snapped with a pop as the weight of both her and Sera ripped it out of the socket. She winced at the sound of it, but oddly enough, there was no pain. It didn't hurt at all, really, with her disjointed arm now only supporting them by the grip of her fingers. Her other arm also didn't hurt, it probably wasn't good.

"Are we dead?" Sera mumbled, eyes shut and still clinging to her arm like a cub.

She glanced down at him and noted the spikes on the floor that came inches from his curled-up legs. It had been close.

"We're not dead," Helena grunted, supporting his dead weight. While it wasn't painful, which was concerning enough, it also wasn't effortless. "Now, get down before I drop you."

Sera peeked his eyes open and checked underneath him, breathing a soft, "Oh."

He lowered his legs, which now came about a foot off the ground.

"And don't kill yourself on a spike," she added.

"Oh, Agent Harper, you do care," he said with a chuckle. His grip loosened before freeing entirely as he safely dropped around the spikes onto the floor. "What about that arm, eh?" he asked, nice enough to be concerned.

"I think it popped out again," Helena told him, lowering herself from a higher point with Sera's help.

She was forced to leave the grappling hook, unable to loosen it.

"I hope we don't need that anymore," she muttered, swiping up her jacket with her good arm. "Come on, Sera." she called, moving away from the impaling spikes. "You have to fix my arm."

"You're really pushing it with that injury, Agent Harper."

"It can't be helped for now," she said, walking a few feet into a tunnel that led into a vast, sewer opening. She wrinkled her nose at the horrible smell, literally burning her nostrils upon inhaling. "Ugh," she groaned, blinking as the toxic waste even started to sting her eyes. "Over here," she told him.

She pointed to one of the stone walls that supported the underground waste system. She carried her jacket over, careful not to let it drag through the sewage water, and leaned back against the wall with a sigh.

"Push it back," she asked, referring to the limp, useless arm she could barely feel but for its dead weight.

"I've got to feel it first," Sera warned, moving in front of her. "This might sting again, Agent Harper."

"It won't," Helena said, resting her head back against the wall as she allowed Sera to feel her shoulder for the placement. "It didn't even hurt when we fell."

"Not at all?" Sera asked her, looking at her with concern.

"Not at all," Helena confirmed, sighing as Sera exerted pressure.

She could feel the limb slipping, shifting back into its socket and giving way, but unlike the first time, no agonizing pain accompanied the snap back into place. It was unnatural, how easy the move felt. When it'd slid back into place, she could lift her arm and moved it again. She felt the limb inside her shirt and felt how puffy and swollen it was upon touching, all of it, but no pain.

"Maybe you shouldn't move it so much, Agent Harper," Sera suggested. "Try not to overwork it. You can really mess it up, especially not feeling the pain from it."

"I'll be fine," she insisted, pulling on her jacket, but as she did, she felt something.

A quick search of the pockets turned up the bottle of pills she had handed to Ashley. She glared at it, hating it for being here instead of with Ashley. With a heavy heart, she took three pills for herself, thinking it was three pills the girl could have used more.

Sera stepped off and allowed her to pass, then followed closely as she waded through tunnel sewage. More disturbing than before, as the route rounded, they found zealot bodies littering the path. Her fingers closed around the familiar hilt of her Hydra once again, but nothing moved down here but the rats.

"Agent Harper!" Sera called out unexpectedly, and she glanced back to see him stooped over one of the zealot's bodies.

She drew her weapon, but when Sera pulled back from the corpse, it was with a golden, shiny crown in hand.

"Look at this! Look at this!" Sera exclaimed in delight, bringing the piece over to her to show its gleaming face.

"Would you cut it out?" Helena snapped, turning back on route as the square tunnel turned a corner.

"We need as much treasure as we can find!" Sera cheerfully reminded her. "The merchant is getting us RPGs, remember?"

Helena grumbled under her breath and switched on her tactical light. They continued on around the bend, muck soaking through the bottom of her pants and weighing her down as they walked. The path eventually brought them to a ladder that lead to higher ground. She aimed her light towards it to see if it would draw any enemies possibly lurking about.

When nothing happened, she looked at Luis and nodded at the ladder before going up first.

* * *

"So, Agent Harper…" he began conversationally as they walked along the side pathway of the upper level, a welcomed improvement over truding through more sewer water.

"What, Sera?" she asked in exasperation, not liking his tone.

"I couldn't help but notice you and your Ms. Ada seem to be on a first name basis," he said, badly feigning an air of nonchalance. "I'm curious, how did that come to be?"

"Would you stop calling her my Ms. Ada?" she snapped, hurrying on ahead.

"I will!" he responded cheerfully, then ran to caught up with her. "If you answer my question," he added, flashing her a big, cheesy grin.

She gritted her teeth, seriously considering pushing him into sewer water.

"If I call you Luis, will you shut up about it?" she bit out.

"Oh!" he said, looking so pleased she almost pushed him. "Of course, of course… Helena."

She stared him, half expecting him to start giggling with how giddy he seemed. Was he normally like this, she wondered, or was this just the effect of being isolated with cultists and scientists for two years?

They reached a door, the label on it worn and unreadable. Entering cautiously, they stepped into a narrow hallway with grated floors, the lights illuminating it flickering.

_Lights. There's power here._

"There should be an elevator we can use to get out of here," Luis told her. "It's in the first room up ahead, hopefully we don't need to reroute the power to make it work."

Helena nodded, appreciating that he still remembered to be helpful.

"Alright."

"You know, Helena, people wouldn't think you're-"

She stopped walking, holding out an arm to block him.

"Quiet," Helena said, readjusting her grip on her Hydra.

She heard something, she was sure of it.

"Helena," Luis drawled in amusement. "You're not just trying to sh-"

"I said shut up," she snapped, then heard the noise again.

As soon as Luis stopped talking, her head turned up to the ceiling, where the padded footsteps faintly echoed.

"What is it?" Luis asked, finally noticing it.

She didn't answer, her eyes still on the ceiling. The footsteps had stopped, directly above them, if she guessed right.

Concrete exploded suddenly and Helena reflexively dropped. Through the stone ceiling, a long, black, spike-tipped tail cracked through to swipe at her. It followed her down as she dropped and came within an inch of her, then stopped, running out of length. The tail viciously lashed around, trying to find her.

"Ah, verdugo!" Luis yelped and jumped back as the spiked end stabbed at him.

Taking a gamble, Helena kicked Luis in the shin and he fortunately understood. When the tail drew back up, she rolled back up to her feet and motioned at him to follow her as a deep growl rang from the hole in the ceiling.

Luis crept towards her, looking like he had something important to say, possibly why the BOW currently after them was called an executioner, but the name was telling enough. When he was halfway to her, the tail broke through another part of the ceiling and plunged down at them again, Luis scrambling away just in time.

Helena aimed her Hydra and shot the tail nub sticking out of the new hole in the ceiling. A pained screech came from the ceiling, the tail thrashing wildly before retreating.

"I strongly suggest running away from this one, Helena!" Luis said when the ceiling started to shake. "Because I think you really made it angry," he added, looking up.

A chunk of cement suddenly fell and cracked on the ground, almost big enough to crush a man. Then out of the ceiling, a black, bony body emerged. Covered in black exoskeleton, the verdugo was tall and slender, its legs long and its feet digitigrade. Its hands had only three digits, but both its two spindly fingers and thumbs were tipped with long, sharp claws, and only the top half of its head remained recognizably human, the lower half turned into large mandibles.

"Run, Helena! Our guns won't kill it!" Luis said, shooting it as he backed up.

The verdugo swiped at her, long claws ripping through her shirt and jacket as she jumped back. Luis grabbed her wrist.

"Come on!"

Another claw came at her. Helena ducked as she ran the opposite way. Claws scraped on metal and stone as it followed.

"You're bleeding again," Luis told her, glancing at her stomach where the swipe had apparently touched skin.

"I'm fine," Helena said dismissively, feeling the blood, not the pain.

"Let me be the judge of that, hmm?" Luis drawled, glancing behind them and then shouting. "Duck!"

He'd jumped and had his arms around Helena to knock her down with him before the command was even fully stated. Helena dropped with him as, overhead, the verdugo soared with claws extended. They scraped on the grated floor landing, ripping through metal as it dragged and made a hole in their flooring.

"Off," Helena barked, dumping Luis to the side and picked up to shoot after it again. She swiftly reloaded as the verdugo turned on them with a hiss.

"Helena!" she heard Luis cry out.

She blasted the verdugo's upper face once more before looking Luis' way, seeing him struggling with a big tank of nitrogen leaning against the wall on the sewer grate supporting them.

"Little help," Luis wheezed, rolling it around to face the verdugo very slowly, but it was already advancing again. "Freezing the verdugo should weaken it enough for our guns!"

Helena made a quick decision and turned her gun on Luis, whose eyes went big only a second before she shot at the tank. Nitrogen burst from the hole in a spray outward towards the monster, turning it white as the cold substance touched it.

"A warning would have been nice!" Luis squawked in protest, barely able to keep a hold of the tank as the nitrogen burst out.

"Just shoot it," Helena growled back, already lining up the verdugo's skullcap in the large blast radius of her Hydra.

It survived four more shots until her second reload and another five from Luis' shotgun, not showing the least sign of wear from barrage of firepower, its skullcap not even bleeding nor any holes.

"Maybe there's another," Luis said when it started moving freely again, grabbing her wrist and pulled her back. "Come on."

She fired off a shot behind her, not so much a fan of this duck-and-cover tactic while fighting, and ripped her hand free of Luis'.

"Stop taking my hand."

"Something making you moody, Helena? Missing your lady friend Ada, hmm?"

 _Ugh._ Even during a fight, she couldn't catch a break from this.

"Don't make me shoot you, Luis," she muttered, but he only chuckled.

"This way," he said, ducking into a side door that she followed him into. "Would you look at that?" he chimed, grinning as they spotted another tank.

She immediately hopped onto it, yanking it away from the fence with less effort than Luis seemed to have exerted on it and turned the nozzle on top just as the verdugo's tail came at her. It slowed and eventually froze, the tip of the tail only inches away from her face.

"I'm starting to think you like flirting with death, Helena," Luis remarked.

She ignored him, focusing instead on shooting the now frozen verdugo when it dropped to the floor. They rinsed and repeated their efforts, running about in search of tanks and open firing on the verdugo once it was frozen. The last stop ended with a satisfying, though disgusting, squish as yellow discharge emitted from its head, but still, the verdugo was alive.

"Goddammit," Helena cursed when she backed up with Luis, finding them cornered before a closed elevator. Chains behind them rattled and the fences shook as the verdugo came at them.

"Time to go incendiary, I think!" Luis exclaimed, grenade already rolling on the floor.

It blew up in the verdugo's face at the same time Helena blasted it, sending it flying back with the rattle of more chains. She advanced on it while it was down and slapped aside the tail point that whipped at her, shooting it three more times in the face, and finally, the BOW was dead.

"Damn, Helena," Luis said as he came up from behind her to inspect. "You really hated that thing, eh?"

"Let's go," Helena said, indicating the elevator, full of an anxious, nervous energy. She just wanted to get out of here at this point, and these BOWs and setbacks weren't helping that.

"After you," Luis obliged.

* * *

"We're supposed to be going up, not deeper," Helena grunted, aggravated that the elevator could only take them to one place, the mine expansion under the castle. "This isn't bringing us closer to Ashley."

"But it is, Helena!" Luis countered. "We have to venture through before we go up through the mines, eh? We'll get to Ms. Graham in no time."

"I hate all these delays," Helena muttered, no less grumpy.

She and Luis made their way through the stoney tunnels where miners from the village had been set to work. They managed to quietly dispose of the villagers in the tunnel, the process slow but necessary not to alert the rest outside.

"Every second we spend down here, that thing's growing in Ashley," she said in frustration, every infected villager she had taken down only reminding her of the girl winding up the same if they didn't hurry.

"And you, Helena," Luis added. "We'll get there as fast as we can. Snipe the rest of those down there with your rifle, yes? I'll take care of any who try to come up the ladder."

Helena sighed, but it was a good plan. Perched on the edge of a mining rail with a ladder that led further down beside her, she rested the front of her rifle on the metal ledge and started picking off the miners one by one below. Only a few made it to the stairs, and all below were dead within fifteen minutes, but it felt like half a lifetime to Helena. She was getting anxious and twitchy all over with the stalling.

"Let's go," Helena said, ignoring the bottom five rungs on the ladder to jump down.

"I think you're forgetting to get tired with that plaga," Luis noted, and when Helena glanced back at him, he was much more visibly tired than she felt.

"Maybe," Helena mumbled, but she couldn't really stop to think about that, they had more pressing issues.

She just had to get to Ashley, and then they could worry about getting rid of the parasite.

"Why are these mines here anyway?" she grumbled, more out of frustration than curiosity.

"These mines were an expansion that Salazar ordered," he told her. "After Saddler convinced him to join Los Illuminados, Salazar had this area reopened as a way of… rectifying the First Castellan's mistake."

"Yeah?" she pressed, needing something else to focus on than how much time they were taking. Find the switch. Jump down. Kill more villagers. Make their way through the tunnels. It was all so grating.

"They opened up the expansion, but they found that the plaga had been fossilized," he went on. "Then, a few days later, the miners began to show signs of infection. With proof that the plaga was still alive, Saddler had Salazar order the villagers to extract the plaga, men, women, children, he didn't care."

"Saddler," she growled, viciously ripping her knife through a hapless villager's neck who'd happened to get in her way at the moment.

"We'll get there, Helena," he assured her, noting her annoyance. "Just a bit more to go through, yes? Pull that lever," he said, pointing to the one on the ground floor they'd had to painstakingly turn on and go through a ton of trouble for. "And we'll head out those doors to the bottom of this. All up from there, you have my word."

"Fine," she muttered, more for his benefit because she realized she was being difficult when he was stuck in almost the same conundrum.

He gave up his free pass to help them, she reminded herself. She could at least try to not take out her frustrations on him.

The lever unlocked the doors that led into a chamber. She glanced down to see a huge, metal grate laid as the floor of the room, and instead of stone beneath their feet, there was lava and under the small, circular room, but she couldn't feel the heat. Figuring it another effect of the plaga, she tried to walk quickly, for fear that the metal grate might melt through her boots if she stayed in one place too long. She wouldn't even feel it if it did.

"Oh, this is not good," Luis mumbled, coming in behind her.

"What is it?" she asked, looking at him.

He pointed at the door ahead of them, a giant, metal door that was locked down.

"That's the way we must go, Helena."

"What's the problem with it?" Helena asked, further annoyed, but doing her best to keep a level head. "It has a lever, doesn't it?"

"It does," Luis admitted, glancing over at it, "but that isn't the problem. The door also houses a couple of gigantes, too…"

"There are giants behind it?" Helena blurted, just barely avoided cursing outly in distress. "How do you even know that?" She revised the question when she realized she really didn't care. She just wanted to get going. "Nevermind. Just open the gate."

"I can do that," Luis said, "but if you want to make this fight quicker and a little less dangerous, I suggest we use the lava catch to kill them."

"Lava catch?"

Luis pointed at the floor she was standing in the middle of, which was a giant circle surrounded by metal grating.

"The circle," he explained, "it opens up. If you stand there, you lure them towards you and I'll run to the latch to catch them when they stand on it."

"Great," Helena grumbled. "Now I'm bait." When Luis waited too long, she grunted. "Well, go. Get on with it."

"Get into position," he told her, and did the same on his end towards the first lever that would open the doorway for them. "They'll hear the door opening," he said, making sure she was ready, to which she couldn't help but glower at the delay, then he pulled on the heavy lever to open the gate.

The very foundations of the room seemed to shake as the massive door slowly lifted back up. Luis dashed across the room to the second switch as it did and crouched down behind the posts to make himself small and unseen.

Helena saw feet first, then legs the size of tree trunks. The impending presence of two giant BOWs, while intimidating to think about, only annoyed her. As soon as the heavy stone had lifted enough to make out twin burley chests and the start of a face, she whistled loudly to draw their attention.

"Hey, over here!"

The two gigantes looked at her in unison, then howled angrily. They almost started fighting each other, bashing each other's arms out of the way in their rush to get to her. When both had moved over the platform en route to grabbing her, the ground under them suddenly opened up and swallowed them whole. Lava splashed up the middle as the gigantes started struggling, the molten stuff taking a moment to eat through all that fat and tough skin.

"See?" Luis gloated, quite pleased with himself. "What did I tell you?" he bragged on, strutting over to the edge as the gigantes continued to flail in the lava. "Simple and foolproof, hah! And you didn't even have to waste a bullet on them, Helena."

Her eyes widened as she saw the arm reach out. Luis busily grinned at her, pleased with himself as the limb lifted to swipe down at him. She ran without thought and tackled him around the middle, somersaulting with him a couple of feet away. Behind them, the whole platform he'd just been standing on shook and hissed with the touch of hot lava. Even if it hadn't crushed him, the splurt of lava would've killed him.

"Agh!" he cried in alarm from under her.

"You want to die?" she growled at him. "Cut the crap, Luis."

"It's hot," Luis said, closing his eyes as he braced himself. "Ow."

She lifted off of him to see a spot on his arm where a lava drip still must've gotten to him. It wasn't altogether big, but it'd burned right through flesh, an instant third degree burn.

"Come on," Helena said, still not feeling they were a safe enough distance from the lava pit.

She helped Luis to his feet and walked until they entered through the door the giants had passed through. Behind them, the gigantes continued to thrash but remained unable to climb out of the pit.

"Are you going to be okay?" Helena asked, seeing Luis in a lot of pain.

"Helena," Luis said, looking up from his injury to Helena in what looked like anguish. "I'm not the only one."

She groaned at the news. She had been on top of Luis when they were hit, and with her inability to feel pain, she had no idea what the lava had done to her.

"Is it bad?" she asked, turning around for him to inspect.

"There's a few spots," Luis told her with a wince. "Your coat caught some of it, but…"

"Has the leather burned to my back?" she hazarded a guess.

"In two spots, maybe," he answered, his tone guilty. "Helena, I'm sorry- "

"It's fine," Helena said, dismissing it, not wanting to waste any more time making Luis fumble with an apology. "Rip it off and let's go."

"Helena…"

"I can't feel it, Luis," she snapped. "Just do it. We have to move."

"I'm still sorry, Helena," he said genuinely after a pause, and when he did it, he winced in sympathy.

"When we find Ashley, you won't have to be," she told him.

He nodded, and then attempted to cover her burns with the remaining bandages he had, using tape to hold it together. He left his own unattended despite her protests.

With no time to argue, they went on and started down the tunneling passage. It opened up into something much bigger, a huge cavern of sorts, and thankfully, a trail up that they could take.

"Finally," Helena mumbled, just glad for a change of venue as it meant they were progressing.

A moment later, she heard the drone of familiar, unwelcomed buzzing. She cursed as she saw a novistador nearby, and then many more ahead.

"Here we go again," Luis groaned.

Helena silently agreed, scowling at the novistador.

* * *

"Well, that wasn't so bad," Luis commented after they finally exited the novistador cavern, trying to find the bright side for her. "We got more crystal eyes, pieces of the crown and this lucky rock!"

"What the fuck is so lucky about a stupid rock," she snarled.

"Now, now, Helena, let's not start getting angry at lucky rocks," Luis advised, and Helena couldn't really tell if he was joking or not. "We still need you."

"We?" Helena ventured, humoring him as they traveled along a dirt path enshrouded by dead trees and a small rock ledge. Above it, the castle they'd finally escaped from loomed over them.

 _We're almost there, Ashley,_ she thought, hoping the girl was still within reach.

"Yes, we!" Luis chimed, in a happy mood, probably because of all the shiny treasures in his backpack. "Me, Miss Graham, your lady friend, Ms. Ada."

"When I said to stop calling her my Ms. Ada, I didn't mean you get to replace it with 'lady friend.'"

"Why?" Luis asked with a smile. "Does that… _bug_ you, Helena?"

She seethed and Luis chuckled as they rounded a circular bend that had an island planted in the middle of it, housing a tree that'd long since died, like everything else in the area. They continued on under a stone archway that had seen better days, now weathered by decay and the elements.

"I'm just saying, my friend. I'm not blaming you for noticing Ms. Ada's lovely assets, eh?" he said, nudging her with his elbow and waggling his brows at her. "All in the utmost respect, of course," he added. "The lady's not hard to notice, and I notice you've been… noticing her quite a bit. Something you want to talk about, maybe?"

Turning in the middle of the pathway lined with pillars, she grabbed his arm and stuck her Hydra under his chin.

"Helena," he chuckled.

"Luis," she responded gamely, her finger on the trigger.

"There's a villager coming up behind you."

She nonchalantly whipped her gun around on the hapless villager, killing him with a single, point blank shot. In that moment, the expression on Luis' face went from amused to terrified.

"The safety wasn't on?!" he squeaked.

"Stop talking about Ada," she simply said, then continued on her way.

"Okay, okay," he relented, tossing up his hands. "Women and their love lives, always a big secret."

"I don't even know her!" Helena snapped, hating how it still made her blush.

"But you like her, no?" Luis teased, apparently wanting the last word at the risk of his two front teeth.

Lucky for him, they reached the end of the route, the stone doorway up ahead sealed shut.

"Dead end," she muttered, approaching the doorway and seeing a circular indentation. "It probably needs a key. Damn it."

"Ah, Helena, don't fret, we just need to find the key!" Luis exclaimed, shuffling somewhere else within a wooden-enclosed space on something that might have been a shack in earlier days.

"Find the key," she repeated, wondering if it was as simple as he made it sound.

She followed him, hopping a wooden ledge to see him in the little, decayed hut with his hands on a giant crank, which he slowly rotated.

"The mines are down below. The key should be there," he told her as a hatch in the ground slowly opened up, revealing a ladder that led underground. "If I remember correctly."

"If you remember," Helena drawled, losing more and more confidence his idea.

"Well, yes," he said. "I think one of the villagers down here has it, and since it looks like this hasn't been opened recently, it should still be down there with one of them."

"You're not even sure if the key is down there?" she asked, unable to keep the growl in her voice.

"Someone's getting grumpy again," he chimed as the full circle of a hole opened. "I can talk about your lovely lady friend in red if it makes you feel better."

"Don't," Helena groaned. "This is taking too long, Luis."

"We might find more treasures for the merchant's RPGs," he reasoned, like it was a tempting, worthy detour to make.

"And the key is just a bonus to you?"

"Come on, Helena. Focus on other things," Luis urged her, looking down into the hole he'd opened and started on the ladder first. "Like how pretty Ms. Ada is in red, hmm?"

Helena kicked him on the shoulder down the ladder, making him tumble down with a squawk.

"I said don't talk about her," she warned him.

"Oww," Luis whined, rubbing at his shoulder as he picked himself up from the ground. "Anyone ever told you you could use a little anger management?"

* * *

"I hate these villagers."

"Helena," Luis chastised, "that's a strong word, my friend."

She lined up the scope on another head down below. She and Luis had superior position on the villagers, sniping them from a circular hole carved in rock, but the work was slow going. She had lost count of the various many he'd killed by stabbing, and she herself was even starting to run a little low on sniper ammo, which was ridiculous because she'd fully refilled only a little bit ago with the merchant.

"How many of them are there?" she cursed, annoyed with the numbers of bodies that were stacking up. "Did he have to put the whole damn village down here?"

"Helena," Luis chastised again. "They're dwindling, yes? I don't see any more shuffling through the door."

She spotted one with lit dynamite a second before he threw it. She shot the stick as it sailed through the air, detonating it over a horde of them.

"Nice!" Luis cheered, but his enthusiasm quickly died when he saw a particular village. "Dios, is that a chainsaw? It's a chainsaw!" he blurted, reaching for the TMP.

"Not again," she muttered sourly, already re-focusing her sights on the man with a burlap sack over his head. Where the hell did they think of this anyway? Was _every_ villager with a chainsaw going to be wearing a burlap sack? It was ridiculous. "Don't you let any villagers up while we deal with him."

"You have my word, Helena," he said, cutting a slice across a woman's chest as he balanced the TMP beside her rifle, then began to fire at the man with the chainsaw.

Helena carefully lined up her shot and fired, managing to hit him on the head. Five more headshots and a continuous spray of TMP ammo and still the man he moved towards the ladder leading to them.

"He's coming up here," she said, shooting the man one more time as he reached the ladder bottom and revved his engine.

He then lifted the chainsaw, promptly cutting the bottom of the ladder and subsequently making the whole thing collapse.

"Okay," Luis started, blinking, "he is either having a lot of trouble seeing or he is not very smart."

The roar of a chainsaw motor sounded again, but it was louder this time, and closer.

_Shit!_

Helena grabbed Luis and rolled as the blade of a chainsaw cut into the stone and ripped through the butt of his TMP that'd been left behind.

"Hey, that's my gun!" Luis squawked in protest.

She threw him off her, pulling free her Hydra to shoot a second man with a chainsaw, also with a burlap sack, as he raised his weapon dangerously.

"Ow!" Luis yelped, slamming into the stone wall where she'd tossed him. "Show some restraint, Helena!"

She kicked out the leg of the man when her Hydra ran dry of ammo. She wasn't at all pleased that a big man with a noisy weapon managed to sneak up on her. With the stairs in the back easily accessible from the ground floor, they expected an ambush, but they also expected to be aware of it.

The man crumpled from her kick, even falling back from it. She reloaded her Hydra as she got to her feet, stepping over to the man and kicking the tool out of his hands before shooting him in the face.

"Helena!" Luis yelped, dropping to duck the flying projectile, which crunched stone above him before falling. "Watch where you're throwing things, eh?"

Something began to writhe and erupt from the burlap sack when the first chainsaw man stumbled haphazardly in from the rampway. Sick of wasting so much ammo, Helena dropped a flash grenade in her wake and walked away as the plaga burst forth from the body and the second man wobbled in. The plaga shriveled and screeched, dying, as the first chainsaw dropped heavily, whirred a moment, then died with its owner.

Finally. Some peace.

"Dios," Luis cursed as a sudden, eerie silence resounded through the cavern after. "You're ruthless, Helena."

"Come on," she said, looking over at the railing down the stairs. "Let's go down here."

"Wait, Helena," Luis implored, groaning as he pulled to his feet.

"Quit being a baby."

"Helena, if I could throw you that hard, you'd be in pain, too," he reasoned, stretching and cracking his back. "Agh. That feels right and wrong all at once."

"Are you done?" she asked impatiently.

"Okay, okay," he obliged, but paused when he glanced at the body of the man. "Ooh, Helena! Something shiny!" he said, bending over to pick it up.

"Stop trying to loot all the bodies," she grumbled, having a hard time controlling her anxiousness.

"Ah, but this is a treasure you want, Helena," he proudly declared, holding up a circular stone with a blue and red emblem on it. "A bright little key to freedom."

"Let's go," she said, turning her attention away from the stairwell.

"Helena, wait!" he called, hurrying over to her to grab her arm. "We need treasures for the merchant," he insisted. "Remember the RPGs he promised? We can use them to protect Ashley!"

She paused, narrowing her eyes as she regarded him suspiciously.

"Just a little further," Luis said encouragingly. "I know there's hidden treasure down here, even more valuable than the crowns! We'll be able to buy both of them with it, eh?"

"You're starting to sound like the merchant," Helena murmured, shoving his arm off, "and stop grabbing my arm."

Admittedly, he had a point. The kind of firepower two RPGs would lend were sure to come in handy for whatever else they had to face before reaching Ashley. It was the only reason she put up with Luis' treasure craze.

"Yeah!" Luis cheered and started for the stairs down, "You won't be disappointed, Helena."

They went down the stairwell and ended up in a small, circular room with only one door. It led right back to the ground level, where they had to take care of the stragglers, including the first man with a chainsaw. With a well-placed grenade and a few Hydra shots, the area was clear.

"Alright. Let's go," she said.

"You said a few rooms!" Luis objected, already starting down further stairs without waiting.

"Luis," she groaned.

"It's just a small room!" he exclaimed. "With no villagers! Come on, I need your help moving this."

Biting a retort, Helena followed downstairs to see Luis at the side of stone coffin, struggling to inch a heavy, metal slab off the top of it.

She was speechless for a full thirty seconds, then asked, "What the hell are you doing?"

"There's treasure in here!" he said excitedly. "Help me open it!"

"Now we're graverobbing," Helena muttered, walking into the room.

"For Ashley!" Luis reminded, earning a glare from her.

Moving up to the side of the coffin he was pushing from, she easily slid the heavy stone lid off the coffin. Luis stared at her with wide eyes, momentarily forgetting to check for treasure.

"Do you know how heavy that is?" he asked.

She was a lot stronger now; the plaga was steadily growing, even with the drugs.

"Grab your scepter and let's get out of here," she ordered, unimpressed with the gold-handled, emerald-gemmed scepter with a ruby the size of a large fist fitted on top.

"Oh, will you look at that," Luis murmured in awe and he picked it up, ignoring the skull of the skeleton that seemed to stare at them. "Helena, look!"

"Are you happy?" Helena drawled, unamused.

"Mostly!"

"Mostly?" she echoed, not liking the sound of it.

"Just a little further!" he said. "If they leave around scepters like this, imagine what's in the lower levels! We must check, Helena. For Ash-"

"Cut the crap," Helena barked, not falling it. "One more room, Luis, that's it."

"Okay!" he replied happily. "But an actual room! Not a hallway. Agreed?"

She grunted and followed him through the torch-lit mines until they came upon a metal door that led down a crescent path. He cheerfully grabbed up gold pieces left by a row of stone windows. It seemed to make him very happy, but as they rounded further down, Helena remained acutely aware of the time they were wasting down here.

"Luis…"

"The door's right here!" he told her eagerly, radiating with so much glee it was ridiculous.

"Last room," she said, fighting to stay patient.

Opening the door, Luis practically skipped into the room to look for treasures. She followed moodily behind him, glancing around, then up, going rigid when she saw the ceiling.

"Luis!"

It was too late. As he pranced around looking for shiny things, his foot weighed down on the trick platform step. Above them, heavy stone screeched as it slid, red lights blinking in four different places on the ceiling as the spikes started to descend.

"...I'm sorry!" he blurted when he saw her glaring at him, then quickly grabbed his Red9.

"Just shoot the damn lights," she said, remembering what Ada did.

She pulled at her Picador and went over to the further pair of lights, leaving the other pair to Luis. Near him, the sand started to move, and from under it, four of the spider-like plaga emerged.

"Agh!" Luis cried out in surprise, lowering his Red9 to shoot at the plaga in the sand.

They skittered around his shots and made a beeline for him. Only having shot out two of the overhead lights, Helena glanced away to see the plaga on his boots and making their way up his legs. She groaned, and unbelted another flash grenade for him.

_What a fucking waste._

Luis gasped in surprise when two died on his chest and stomach, one on his leg and boot. He dusted them off and shivered in disgust, leaving Helena alone to shoot out the ceiling, which, with the distraction, had gotten a lot lower than it had with Ada.

Walking with her head ducked to avoid the spikes above it, she grabbed Luis by the shirt and snarled at him.

"We're leaving," Helena growled, kicking the door from the bottom, which smacked open. "Out."

With his head lowered, Luis shuffled out of the cave ahead of her.

* * *

"Ah, out of the mines and back in the castle!" Luis said in relief, ever finding the chipper side of things.

"Keep your voice down," Helena snapped, scowling.

They traversed down the long hallway that led to a spacious foreroom square. It would be considered tiny in comparison to the next pathed hallway, which further led into a grand entrance hall.

Stained glass windows decorated up the rear wall at least a hundred feet tall. Grand archways went up six levels high and a large pathway lit by torches stood in front of the biggest statue she had ever seen. There in front of the stained glass on the far wall, a mammoth replica of Salazar stood almost as high as the six-story, arched rooftop, complete with the same outfit Helena had seen him in, even the tricorn hat.

"At least he doesn't think little of himself, eh?" Luis said, grinning at his own, terrible pun and making her groan in exasperation.

"Come on," she said, turning her back on the statue as she started down the long path to the massive, hundred foot doors ahead.

She was relieved to see a small door to the side. No way would they have even been able to move those massive doors otherwise.

When she stepped down to the platform, the floor gave way a little. She looked down at it to see her foot had pressed some button on the floor and currently had it depressed.

"Fuck," she groaned.

"What's wrong?" Luis asked, coming up fast behind her. Helena held a hand up to stop him from going further.

"I triggered a trap," she said, checking around herself for one. Nothing had moved or activated, but she was sure something would happen as soon as she lifted her foot from the flooring. "Do you see anything?"

"I can't even see the ceiling," he reported, finding nothing in their immediate vicinity. "How about you?"

"No," she responded with equally exasperated sigh, "not unless the statue's going to pull out weapons and attack us."

"Hmm," Luis pondered. "Maybe you and I both run across the path real quick, soon as you step off that thing?"

Helena didn't know what their other option could be. She could spot traps well enough, especially upon given a moment to do so, but she didn't see anything here.

"Okay," she agreed, crouching down on the one, set leg to sprint. "Get ready to run."

"We'll be fine, Helena," Luis said. "I don't remember Salazar setting any traps up in here, so it's probably recent and sloppy."

"Very reassuring," she drawled, setting her sights on that small side door. "Here we go."

"One…" Luis counted, "two… three!"

She bolted. Behind her, something massive shifted, followed by a heavy crash. She looked back to see the giant, six-story statue taking its first steps.

"You've got to be fucking me!"

The raised, stone table in front of it crumbled, showering the platform with rocks the size of small boulders.

"That was all you," Luis pointed out, sprinting beside her, but having enough breath to quip.

She glowered at him, but as the giant Salazar statue stomped behind them, the ground quaked. One heavy, massive arm carelessly bumped into a side pillar and sent it falling towards them.

"Jump!" she ordered, leaping into the air herself in a flying roll that had her somersaulting when she hit the ground.

Luis, still running, grabbed her up by the arm and ran on.

"We have no time for theatrics, Helena!"

Helena rolled up to her feet without wasting a second. As it turned out, the very next pillar the statue bumped was on Luis' side. He barely evaded it and lost a lot of speed in doing so.

"I'm blaming you for that too!" Luis cried out, now distinctly a few feet behind her.

When they hit the next set of side pillars down the pathway, the statue behind them ran into both of them.

"Fuck!"

"Gah!"

The pillars crashed with a heavy boom and Helena didn't hear Luis' footsteps or see him upon glancing back.

"Luis?!" she called out frantically.

His head popped up on the wrong side of the pillar a moment later as he started to climb over it.

"I'm okay!" he shouted. "Just run!"

"Jesus," Helena swore under her breath, barreling ahead to that side door that came clearer into focus as a foot almost squished her partner behind her. That wasn't all she saw. There, over the door handle sat a deadbolt lock. Helena swore at it. "Damn it!" she yelled, yanking free her Hydra and shooting it only steps away, but it didn't kill the lock.

Gears and the locking mechanism burst as she ran like a bull, good shoulder taking the brunt of the hit that had her sprawling on the fallen-in wood as it gave way from under her.

"Helena!" Luis squeaked, hands suddenly on her arm again to help yank her up. The tremors in the ground tripled as stone cracked under their feet. "Across the bridge!"

Holstering her Hydra, she took off like a bullet with him. He was sweating and panting as they ran, but she couldn't even feel the strain in her muscles. Behind them, the Salazar statue just kept following, even as the bridge started to crumple under his weight. It took one final step that literally cracked the ground under her feet. The bridge started to give way, they weren't going to make it.

Acting fast with a mind on what Luis had mentioned before, Helena lagged just a step behind him and shoved him with all her strength.

He went flying ahead as stone evaporated under her feet and suddenly, she was falling. She reached out desperately for any source of holding. Her hand found purchase on the edge and she hooked on it, quickly scrambling for a better grip. The giant Salazar statue fell the long way down, but her hand caught on the slightest of indentations. Rock trembled and split when her full weight hung on it. She could see the cracks spidering. Any slight disruption, even the smallest movement would have it snapping in a second.

"Helena!" Luis coughed and shouted, rushing over to the ledge.

The rock snapped. Luis threw himself half over the ledge and caught her arm, almost falling off himself and only catching his weight by hooking a leg into the half-crushed railing that had a divot for him to hang on to.

"Nice catch," Helena said, hanging freely by her arm in Luis' straining grip.

"You still want me to let go of this arm?" Luis teased, managing a grin.

"Can you pull me up?" she asked, letting him get away with one bad joke for the pure fact that she'd be dead if he hadn't tossed himself to catch her.

Sweat beaded Luis' brow with effort and strain.

"Trying," he wheezed.

"Don't let go with that leg," she said, reaching up her other arm for his shoulder.

"I imagine this is easier," Luis panted, "when you don't feel broken from someone throwing you like a hacky sack."

"Stop complaining," Helena grunted, already half up his back in climbing. "I had to throw you."

Luis panted, but she was up and off him in seconds, then helped pull Luis back over to the right side.

"I realize," he admitted, taking a deep breath and wiping the sweat from his brow.

He took out the canteen from his side and downed back a long swig, then offered it to her, but shook her head, not feeling thirsty.

"Helena," he said, taking a long, agonizing moment to recover before he started getting to his feet again. "Thanks."

"You too," she responded. With a nod and glance back over to the tall, circular tower to which they were headed, she asked. "You ready?"

"Not as ready as you," Luis confessed, capping his canteen, "but let's go."

* * *

The next room they entered was as elaborate as the throne room she'd first found Salazar in. A high balcony stood at the face of the room with a circular landing all around it and an elevator beneath the middle. It was lavish with a grand chandelier made of gold overhead, and a fully designed ring of etchings into the stone flooring below.

Torches lit the circular room on either side of the door they'd entered. Outside of the elevator stood the other verdugo, still wearing its black robe, and smack dab in the middle of the elevator behind a gated doorway was Salazar himself, cackling gleefully.

Helena started to pull free her gun, but the elevator had already started to lift away.

"So nice of you to join us, Agent Harper," he taunted. "I'm sure the girl would like to know you're here."

Helena shot after that maniacal laughter, but the bullet just struck the gate harmlessly.

 _Ashley's up there,_ she thought as she watched the elevator ascend.

Nearby, the verdugo stripped in one, smooth movement, revealing itself to be completely identical to the first one they had encountered.

"I don't see any nitrogen tanks, Helena!" Luis said as verdugo sprang for them.

"We don't need them," Helena growled, splitting up from him and firing at the verdugo's skullcap with her Picador and Hydra.

From the other side of the room, Luis shot at the verdugo with two Red9s. The verdugo lunged at her, and she barely jumped aside in time as it leapt cleanly across the room. She hit the floor on her back and kept shooting. In another instant, it was on top of her.

"No!" Luis shouted out amid his gunshots.

Helena's arms were pinned down by the verdugo, her guns flattened to the floor in her hands with it. Luis kept shooting and moved closer to help. The verdugo loomed over her, its large, bright eyes gleaming menacingly. Its mandibles parted, the inside of its mouth black like its exoskeleton.

Helena folded in her knees and bashed her legs into it with as much power as she could muster. The verdugo's fingers were still embedded in stone and didn't loosen, but the rest of its body lifted off the ground and flipped backwards over her head. She heard a muffled crack that sounded like bones breaking. With her arms still trapped, she blindly fired her Hydra and Picador at the verdugo's direction.

"Dios!" Luis cursed and proceeded to empty his clips into the back of its head on the ground. "Helena…"

"Is it dead?" she asked.

"Dead and messy," he said.

She dropped her two favorite guns, slid her arms out from between the verdugo's fingers and quickly retrieved her guns, sights trained on it just in case.

"It died quick," Helena noted suspiciously.

"Yes, well, when you blast it point blank in the head over and over again…" he drawled, indicating the yellow discharge all over it. He then nudged it onto its side with his toe, saying, "You also did that."

Helena blinked. Up along the front of the verdugo was now a mess of crumpled limbs and broken exoskeleton, the bulk of the damage originating from the same spot she had jammed her knee into to get the it off her.

"Your strength's incredible," Luis told her, cringing at the bloody mess of it. "We need to get you to that machine soon."

"Ashley first," she said.

The elevator sounded off behind them, the gate opening invitingly.

"It seems like Salazar's waiting for us," Luis remarked, looking up. "You must really have him scared, Helena. They keep the queen plaga at the top of this tower. If he means to use it to fight, then he really is quite desperate."

"Queen?" Helena asked, regarding him inquisitively as they boarded the elevator. The gate closed and the elevator began to ascend.

"It's a unique type of plaga they found in the mine expansion. It can produce plaga eggs, it can even produce adult Type C plaga."

"Type C?" she repeated, reloading her Hydra. "Do you mean the ones that crawl out of the body?"

"Yes!" he replied enthusiastically as he followed her. "The Type A plaga, you've seen on the villagers. The zealots have Type C and Type B plaga. This is a little late, but do watch for the Type B plaga. They'll bite your head off, literally."

Helena nodded, appreciating the helpful hint, no matter how late.

"Does the queen plaga have any weak spots?" she asked.

"The queen plaga is a very large organism," Luis started to say, "its mobility is restricted to three large tentacles attached to its core. It's very plant-like, actually, it is rooted itself to the top of the tower. As for a weakness, I can't say. I very much doubt flash grenades will work. Perhaps an RPG to the massive orifice it reveals when it produces Type C plaga."

"The merchant better be there," she muttered, stepping off the elevator when it reached the top level.

The path led them to up a flight of stairs, then to a large balcony attached to the outside of the tower. Helena followed it up, taking the lead, and hit upon an unexpected surprise at the top.

"Welcome!" the friendly, red-eyed merchant greeted, standing next to a table of ammo, two flak jackets, and grenades with two red-tipped, sleek and shiny RPGs on display.

"I told you he'd come through!" Luis cried out, quite happy to see the merchant.

She felt the same way, but she wasn't prepared to spend another twenty minutes here like they had last time.

"Take out the treasure," she said, happy to see Luis already removing the pack from his back. "Let's make this quick, merchant. We'll take everything."

It was a great thing he was here, she was starting to realize. Her sniper had about three rounds left and her heavily-favored Hydra was running low.

"Ooh," the merchant spoke enthusiastically, red eyes glowing in greedy delight. "What treasures do you have for all?"

Luis started taking them out. The merchant's face was almost comical with the way his red eyes gleamed on the prizes.

"Yes, yes, I'll accept all of these," the merchant droned.

"Good," Helena answered curtly when Luis had emptied the bag on the merchant's table. "All this for all you have with the two rocket launchers," she said, starting to pick up the RPGs by their slings.

"Ohh," the merchant mumbled, sounding much more serious then. "Not nearly enough. Not enough, stranger! Those treasures will buy you one RPG and the ammo."

"What?" Helena spat, turning narrowed eyes on him.

"You have not enough," the merchant repeated. "One RPG and the ammo or two rockets without. Not enough for all."

Helena eyed the large pile of treasures they'd set before him for the exchange.

"You're kidding me."

"They're expensive, stranger," the merchant insisted. "Coming across these was not easy. No. No easy task. They're worth-"

Helena pulled out her Hydra and shot him point blank in the face, knocking him off the railing and sending him falling to his death.

"Helena!" Luis yelped in protest, rushing to the rail to see the merchant falling down into the mist. "Why'd you do that?" he demanded, looking at her in alarm.

"We need it all," she said simply, refilling her spare cartridges with ammo while Luis just gaped at her. "Are you coming to help or what?" she snapped, getting ammo for her Hydra.

"I'm glad I'm on your team," he finally spoke with a shake of his head. He hurried to the table and began reloading his own guns as well.

"Store the rest of this in your bag," she told him, motioning at the remaining ammo when all her guns and clips had been refreshed.

"One minute," Luis asked, hurrying over to the other side of the table where he'd dumped out the loot. He started to pack them back in the bag.

"Luis!" she snapped.

"We want the ammo on top!" he squeaked, then quickly, carelessly shoved as much as he could back in while she glared at him.

He hurriedly started packing up their leftover ammunition as she strapped the replacement flash grenades to her belt. She let him have the rest when all the slots had been filled. Finally, she picked up the last of their new equipment, one of the RPGs, and signaled Luis get the other.

"Let's go," she said, already on the move.

"Helena, wait!" Luis begged, pulling on one of the two flak jackets and latching it up before grabbing his bag. Helena was already half out the door by the time he said it. "You should wear this flak jacket!"

"Later," Helena grunted impatiently, knowing Ashley could be on the other side.

* * *

Helena headed first with Luis right beside her. They hurried down an arched pathway that led into another grand room with a raised platform and table in the middle of it. Stairs led up to the table, which was surrounded by four lit torches at the center. Other torches hung on the wall of the vast room, which opened up long and wide like a huge cavern. Most of it seemed of familiar design to the rest of the castle, spacious and luxurious, but one huge, hanging plant-like organism on the far wall of the room broke up that visage.

It was enormous. Easily the size of ten men across, long and fleshy purple tentacles sprouted from a circular center. In a weird way, it almost resembled a hideous flower of sorts that was huge, alive and pulsated. Spittle or some clear, pus-like liquid dripped from that center piece.

In front of it all, facing the giant plant-like-creature stood Salazar, looking up at it admiringly.

She started for him at once, but a familiar cry of, "Helena!" stopped her in her tracks.

She whipped her head around wildly to the voice to see Ashley on a separate, raised platform in front of a large doorway.

"Ashley!"

"Helena, you're alive!" Ashley cried out in relief. Helena could hear sobs in her voice.

"Silence the girl!" Salazar ordered with a dramatic flick of his hand.

Behind her, three men stood. All had guns, and the burliest of them, a huge man with machine gun belts wrapped around his chest and the pipe of one sticking out from his back complied by covering her mouth with a thick, beefy hand as Ashley tried to scream to her. Only muffled weeps escaped. Held in his careless hands with her own bound around her back, Ashley struggled in his grasp at the sight of Helena.

It welled like a fountain of rage within Helena. With the RPG attached to her shoulder, Helena took aim at Salazar, prepared to yank down the trigger in a second to blow him to pieces.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Salazar spoke cockily. "Shoot me and my men may get a little...rough with Ashley."

Punctuating his exact words, Ashley let out a shriek from her platform that couldn't even be muffled by the hand over her mouth.

"Bastard!" Helena roared, utterly furious. "Don't you fucking touch her!" she yelled, yanking free her Picador with the other hand and aimed at the man holding Ashley.

Above her on the platform, Salazar chuckled and turned to face her.

"You're going to risk the girl's life to get one measly bullet off? A bullet that wouldn't even kill my man," Salazar taunted her, giggling in that annoying manner of his. "I'm afraid you've reached the last of your strings, Agent Harper. There's nothing more you can do here. Soon, she will be one of us. Maybe you'll be with her, if manage to resist the urge to kill you."

Helena stood frozen in indecision. She could take care of Salazar right this instant, but who knew what his henchmen would do to Ashley if they saw her kill him right in front of them? They wouldn't kill her, but there were plenty of ways they could hurt her.

Ashley struggled in the man's arms, tears streaming from her eyes as she fought to speak through muffled words.

"Helena…" Luis mumbled, also at a loss of what to do.

"You're dead," Helena vowed, to which Salazar giggled.

"Idle threats, Agent Harper. You are here to watch my ascension before I slaughter you and that traitor Luis," Salazar said, holding out his arms. "Behold!" he announced as tentacles split from the middle of the purple petals and reached for him. "Welcome, Agent Harper, to the glory of your futility," he said as purple tentacles wrapped around his body and chest, scooping him right off his feet. He made one final hand gesture to the goons on the other platform, saying, "Take her away. Our lord awaits her."

"No!"

Ignoring Salazar being lifted away by the giant plant, laughing, Helena took precise aim with her Picador and fired off into the head of the one holding Ashley. As Salazar had said, it did no good as the man just walked with his cohorts and continued to leave.

She wasn't going to let them get away like that. Dropping the RPG, she sprinted down to the edge of the narrow pathway of her own platform and propelled herself off the ground.

A moment later, a large tentacle the size of a two-by-four smacked into her belly and sent her flying the other way. She crashed into the wall next to Luis, hearing the distinct sound of her ribs cracking.

Salazar's annoying laugh rang out, this time muffled and deep.

"I want you to know the certainty of your fates."

Helena's entire body shook in rage. She barely noticed that the queen plaga's opening had blossomed out, or that more tentacles had erupted from two side points in the wall and the middle core more than the fact that one was pinning her at the stomach. What she noticed was the cocooned, protected shell that engulfed an even more child-like form of Salazar.

A brazen tentacle moved towards Luis. She fired straight into the tentacle that slammed her at her stomach. It writhed away, dropping her to her feet. She sprinted towards the tentacle that was intimidating Luis, jumping on the back of it without hesitation.

"Helena!" Luis yelped in alarm.

"Shoot Salazar when the cocoon's down!" she ordered, raising a knife as the extended head started to move and stabbing it.

A low, deep wail resonated through the chamber. The thick, middle tentacle shook rapidly, trying to throw her off. She jumped when it got near enough to the ledge, happy to see Luis aiming at an unveiled Salazar with a rocket.

"Eat that," Helena swore, kicking the tentacle when it came near her again.

Luis fired the rocket and another wail echoed through the walls. But it wasn't finished, and she wasn't done with it either. Ducking a wild tentacle that came thrashing at her, she pulled the sniper rifle from her back. Lining up her sights on Salazar's head, she fired and fired again. Three consecutive bullets nailed the burnt-up bastard in the head, who still refused to die.

"Little fuck," she cursed.

The thick middle tentacle swooped at her again and she jumped back on top of it,

"Helena, please!"

She barely heard Luis, hate and bloodlust running hot through her veins. She ripped out the knife from its tentacle, yellow discharge exploded everywhere. The creature howled as the enclosing cocoon started to fold over Salazar again to protect him.

"Oh, no you don't," Helena growled, sliding down the thick extension till she reached the middle, lowest point of it.

Then, she started to climb, using the knife for balance by digging into the purple extension every few feet she climbed.

"Oh, Helena," Luis groaned as one of the other tentacles made to swipe her off and she punched it. "Why do you do this to me?"

The tentacle writhed away as if in pain, giving her another moment to climb. It was the only moment Helena needed before she reached the white, folded cocoon protecting Salazar.

She latched onto the cusp of an overlapping layer of the outer cocoon as the tentacle came back. She wasn't so lucky this time as it slapped into her shoulder, making her drop the knife but it didn't matter. Nothing was going to stop her from getting to Salazar. Hooking her fingers into the overlapping fingers of the clam, she pried the shell open inch by inch.

Inside, the childish, white form of Salazar spotted her when the opening had gotten big enough to let in light. He screeched, red eyes gleaming, and reached for her with one free arm. The shell broke open then and Helena fell in feet first and kicked him in the head. He screamed, but Helena was far from finished with him.

"No!" Salazar squeaked, unable to even move, glued to his prison in the shell.

Without her knife, Helena wrapped an arm around his neck.

"You can't do this!" Salazar wailed, reaching back for her with his one free arm.

She caught it, snapping it with one hand. Salazar choked and writhed, screaming in pain.

Her arm darted out, her hands roughly closing around his neck to quiet him. With a feral growl, she yanked, blood spraying everywhere as his head easily came off. Not nearly satisfied, Helena kicked the stump of a body on her way out.

The tentacle lay dead and resting on the ground. Helena slid down it, leaving Salazar far behind.

"Holy shit," Luis mumbled, gaping from above on the other platform, his eyes traveling from Salazar's stump to her. "Did you just pull his head off?"

"We're leaving," Helena said, blood running hot with vengeance.

Ashley had been so close, and she missed it.

Luis scrambled to pick up the spare RPG they hadn't had to use and climbed down the ladder.

"You ripped his head off!"

"Let's go, Luis," Helena snapped, already halfway up the ladder to the platform Ashley had disappeared from.

"I… I don't… Helena!"

"We still have a job to do," Helena told him, hitting the double doors on the platform.

She pushed through them to the outside and hurried along the stone pathway of an upper wall of the castle. Maybe they could still catch her if they moved fast enough. The platform led to a dead end quickly, but there was a rope attached down the side of the wall and no other route they could've taken.

"Down here," she ordered just as Luis reached the outdoors.

"Helena, too fast," Luis panted, struggling to catch up.

"It'd help if you weren't carrying twenty pounds of treasure in that bag," she muttered, sparing him no mercy, and started down the balcony-path that led to an elevator where she finally had to wait for Luis. "Come on!" she barked when he took more than thirty seconds.

"I'm coming! I'm coming!" Luis said, nearly careening into the elevator. He'd started to sweat again. "Do you think we'll catch them?"

"We will if you stop slowing us down."

"You're ruthless."

She scowled at him, starting to fidget when the elevator began to take too long too. What was with all these delays? Ashley could be right below them.

They reached the bottom and found nothing but an empty hall ahead. She speed-walked almost at a run. Down this corridor, turn that way, open into a small storage, down another she went. Luis started to breathe hard at her side again, but she couldn't slow down. Around every next corner, Ashley could be waiting for them. She careened around a final bend and skidded to a halt, almost falling into water.

It was a docking crevasse for small boats, and one of them was missing.

"Damn it!" Helena swore.

"They're probably at the island by now," Luis commented.

"And they just left this boat for us." Helena practically growled, immediately thinking, _trap._

"Probably want to get us all in one place to kill us," Luis said. "That or they thought Salazar would be enough to finish us."

"So we're taking the boat," she muttered, already getting in.

"Looks like."

Great. More sitting. Helena hurried to the driver's seat, in for a long ride.

* * *

"The scepter weighs a good bit," Luis said, removing the piece from his pack to judge the weight in his hands.

"Toss it," Helena ordered logically at the helm.

"Toss it!" he blurted out incredulously.

"I don't want it weighing you down."

"Toss it?" Luis repeated, stuck on that one. "Do you know how much this is worth? A man could live three lives off of it!"

"Or a man could die because he's being hunted down by armed BOWs and he's too stubborn to throw away what's holding him back."

"Bah!" Luis huffed. "You clearly have no appreciation for treasure."

"And you have too much."

"See what a pair we make?"

"If you touch my arm again, I'm going to throw you overboard."

Luis chuckled.

"You are what we call touch _y_ , my friend."

"Make another bad pun," she dared him.

"I feel like my limbs might be threatened here."

"Luis, take the helm," Helena ordered then, stepping off as she started to remove her shouldered gun latches. "And don't crash."

"Into what?"

Helena ignored him as he took the wheel and removed her weapons to put them on the back seat with the spare rocket launcher. She unstrapped her thigh weapons as well, unsure of how the flak jacket would fit against her body with them. She managed to pull the jacket on completely and had started strapping it up when she noticed the water ahead of them took a deeper shade suddenly.

She frowned and looked over the edge as she fitted herself with her holsters.

"What is that?" she wondered out loud.

"What's what?" Luis asked.

"The water," she said. "It just got darker."

"Are you seeing things, Helena?"

"I'm going to check the back," she told him, anxious to check the water behind them.

Luis watched her climbed over the seat, then asked, "How's the water look back there?"

The faintest, dark-moving outline underwater finally squiggled on ahead under their boat.

"Something's under the boat."

"What?"

"Stop the boat!" she ordered.

If that thing was half as huge as that outline had been, they had big trouble on their hands. Luis took a moment, but finally managed to kill the engine. The boat slowed before coming to a gentle drift.

"Now what?" Luis asked, giving her a pointed look of doubt.

He needn't have asked, for only a second later, the giant outline under the sea erupted with a huge splash. Gaping mouth open bigger than their boat, it roared up right in front of them where their boat would have been without the killing of the engine. Massive, sharp teeth surrounded its open mouth where tentacles erupted from the sides of the tongue. Its sickly, gray greenish pallor surrounded the mouth's opening as skin. A wave started up with the simple rise of it out of water, sending their little boat flying when it splashed back down.

Luis scrambled at the controls of the boat to get it running again.

"What is it doing here!" he yelled.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Helena demanded, wildly grabbing for a handle hold to stay on the boat, and grabbed a scepter on the back seat instead, which almost had her flying out of it.

"It's called Del Lago, Helena!" Luis cried, explaining absolutely nothing, then yelled over the returning roar of the fish. "Del Lago. Lagp. Lake! This is not a lake!"

Helena was only further confused by his insistence.

"Who cares? It's here now!"

"I care! That stupid salamander doesn't belong here!"

Luis' confusing and concerning objection aside, the motor boat started to move again. The giant, discolored salamander broke through the water's surface again, closer than before this time, and from the side. She wasn't so lucky this time; thrown to the side of the boat on the sharp wave-thrash, she went straight over the side of the boat.

"Helena!" Luis called after her a second before she splashed fully in.

Water surged up over her and momentarily blinded her as she breathed in a deep breath of water. It flooded her lungs and she choked before she struggled enough to surface, the scepter still in hand. She coughed and sputtered, choking out the mouthful of water she'd inhaled on the descent.

"Luis!" she sputtered, kicking her legs to stay afloat, but moving around way too much doing it.

"Helena, grab this!" he said, tossing out a white life ring for her to grab onto. When she had latched on, he warned, "Hold on tight!" just before her body was lurched along as the boat kicked up fast.

She clung to it with one arm and looked at the scepter in her fingers with the other. About to toss it, the giant salamander's head broke the water right behind her. She gasped as it bumped up under her, and suddenly, she was on top of it.

She did the only thing she could to defend herself and started rapping it over the head with her golden stick.

"Not the-" Luis started as the scepter broke at the top, the whole ruby end falling off to form a sharp end where it had broken, "- scepter…" he mourned, almost tearful when it snapped.

"Would you turn?" she cursed, growling as she lifted the scepter to stab it. With all the strength she could muster with the offhand arm, she slammed her jagged scepter piece into the head of the beast.

It roared. She was glad it was her good arm holding the raft, for she literally flew above water for an instant as Luis swerved so sharply. She skated air for six seconds before crashing into the water again and skidding on it. She imagined the water burn would have hurt if she could feel it, but she was thankfully not feeling anything as she skated across the surface while the boat and raft dragged her.

Her earlier stab hadn't been enough, as the gigantic BOW started after their boat again with alarming speed. She'd probably only poked through the tip of the blubber, the monster was so big. Though feeling no pain, she grimaced when she saw the shadow approaching from beneath again.

"Luis!" she called out, aggravated with this position of being dragged around by a boat. "Do something! Outmaneuver it!"

She almost regretted it as the boat swerved again, tossing her sideways like a limp fish.

"I can't shoot it!" Luis cried back. "I'm driving!"

"Drive better!" Helena groaned, reaching up with her other arm to grab for the rope attached to the life ring.

She hesitated letting go of the raft only a second, then finally did with a wince. As expected, it went crazy in flying and batted her in the side cruelly as she started to distance herself up the rope from it.

Only a few seconds after she'd cleared the annoying raft, the giant salamander's mouth erupted from under the white floaty and swallowed it whole in one risen swallow.

Helena started to move quicker up the rope.

"Watch out for the propeller!" Luis warned her as he cut a sharp right, whirling her around to the left side of the boat where she slammed into its side, but thankfully, a safe distance from the whirling propeller that even her super strength and pain immunity wouldn't help.

Helena grasped the ledge of the boat with the slam. She didn't want to think about the beating her body had just taken there. She probably looked like death, but as long as she was still breathing, she was going to get Ashley back.

She hoisted herself with one arm, finally releasing the rope, and collapsed over the ledge of the boat.

"Dios!" Luis cursed, seeing her look probably half dead.

She scrambled to her feet and reached for the second, spare rocket launcher at once. She had one shot with this. She wouldn't miss.

"Outmaneuver it!" she told him again, nearly collapsing into the seat for support on stubborn legs as she shouldered the rocket and waited.

The salamander erupted again, close enough to the boat to send it careening forward. She kept waiting until they were far enough away, then as the giant BOW started to descend again, she fired the rocket off. It struck as the BOW fell, some kind of wail emitting with the explosion.

"Keep going," Helena said, not trusting that that had killed it either. "Get us to shore, Luis."

"Helena…" Luis started, steering on ahead. "You don't look so good."

She felt kind of sick, actually, probably from being tossed around so much on the water, but she tried to relax in the seat and slowly draw in breaths, knowing her body probably needed down time to settle. She couldn't afford much of it.

"Just keep going," she said, tilting back her head against the seat cushion. One way or another, she was going to get Ashley off this island, even if it cost her her life.

Her thoughts wandered to her sister Deborah, who would surely be so pissed at her. She hoped Hunnigan would take care of her sister after this. She hoped Deborah be okay living alone and unguarded. Most of all, Helena hoped she wouldn't feel abandoned.

_Helena had stared at her beaten, hospitalized sister who had bruises on her face, all over her body, and a broken arm and her head wrapped._

_"You're defending him?" she asked her sister._

_She couldn't believe it. She'd never thought she'd be in this position; sister lying broken and beat, speaking out for her attacker._

_Deborah slapped her, tears welling in her eyes as she shouted._

_"You shot him!"_

_"Deborah…"_

_Helena was lost for words against this._

_"I'm glad you're going to get fired!" Deborah shouted back in mixed rage and pain. "I hate you, I wish you weren't my sister! We were going to go on a cruise together. Now, he's never going to talk to me again."_

_"He beat you," she said blankly, not understanding how her sister could've gotten so mixed up with a man like this._

_"_ I _antagonized_ him!"

 _Deborah was so angry… so blind about whose fault it was. Helena could barely stand to see her sister like that. She wasn't dumb. Why would she have ever stuck with a man like that? Was it… something Helena had lacked to provide for her that she thought she needed- no,_ preferred, _someone like that instead?_

_"I couldn't let him keep hurting you."_

_"Like you don't hurt me?" Deborah mocked her, sneered at her. "Just get out of here. I don't want to see you, Helena."_

_Helena slammed the door on the way, leaving angry, confused and hurt._

"Helena."

She jerked awake, startling Luis.

"Helena, we're here," Luis said, and it took her a moment to remember where she was and why there was a dock in front of her. Luis' faced creased with concern. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," Helena mumbled, shaking off the fading remnant of the memory and grabbed up her guns, which she restrapped over herself, and holstered her Hydra. She threw her jacket on overtop the flak jacket and her holsters.

Deborah had to know Helena loved her. She only hoped her sister would remember that.


	4. The Island Base

"Come on, they can't be far," Helena said, getting off the boat before Luis had tied it.

She barely registered Luis yelping in surprise and calling after her as he attempted to steady the boat. She ignored him and proceeded to follow the rocky path ahead, her mind on Ashley. Fighting Salazar and escaping Del Lago had delayed them enough, and getting Ashley back was only going to solve half their problems. With no back up in sight or in contact, they would have to make it through the base to reach Luis' machine.

 _And they'll be expecting us,_  she thought.

She cursed, almost breaking into a run. She had to hurry. She had to hurry. They'd wasted so much time on the boat.

"Helena!" Luis cried, finally catching up to her but struggling to keep up. "We… we shouldn't rush in blindly. They've set up posts just… just past this tunnel, we'll be walking right into the line of fire! Can we… can we please stop a moment? I-I need to catch my breath."

Helena bit back a growl, needing to make a deliberate, considerable effort not to snap at Luis and even more so to stop moving. He was tired and beaten up, she told herself, things she couldn't feel right now. If anything, she felt restless, full of energy that seemed limitless, but it also made her impulsive and irritable, her instincts and temper becoming harder and harder to reign. She didn't know if it was stress or yet another effect of the plaga.

"Make it quick," she said, not quite able to take away the threatening edge in her voice. "Do you know where they're taking Ashley?"

Still panting, Luis nodded, needing a moment before he could talk.

"There is a chance they'll put her in one of the holding cells in the nearest facility. That is, if they're not taking her directly to Saddler. Either way, it would be wise to check the facility. I know a shortcut, I've managed to find alternate routes during my time here, but… those posts I've mentioned? There's no getting around them, I'm afraid, and we need to access the gate they're guarding to reach the shortcut."

"Then we'll go through them," Helena muttered brashly, already on the move again.

"Now? Oh. Oh!" Luis exclaimed, scrambling after her. " Yes, of course, of course, I was done resting."

Halfway through the tunnel, Helena's handheld went off, a call coming through. She hesitated before answering it. Just minutes ago, she found out she still couldn't contact Hunnigan. There was a chance it was her handler, but it was more likely that the line was still jacked.

When an aged man's face appeared on the screen, what little hope Helena had quickly turned to rage. She nearly crushed her handheld, unused to her enhanced strength, and would have terminated the connection had the man spoken a second too late.

"I would not do that, Agent Harper," he said in Spanish, his old, pale face wrinkling as he smiled. "I see my boy Salazar did not succeed in his attempt to… subdue you. Perhaps I should have heeded Mendez's concerns regarding you and Luis."

"You have something to say to me, Saddler?" Luis murmured darkly, also in Spanish, his tone faintly hostile and confrontational.

 _Saddler?_  Helena thought in alarm, eyes quickly returning to the screen.

"Ahh, Luis," came the response, followed by a low chuckle. "I should have known your loyalty to me died with your grandfather. No matter, you continue to be of use to me. I must thank you for bringing Agent Harper to me. Her body's reaction to the plaga is so fascinating, wouldn't you agree, Luis? Perhaps I'll have you study her, as you did with your grandfather. Unlike him, she may survive your experiments."

"I'll kill you," Helena snarled viciously, baring her teeth.

"Ramon mentioned you were very ill-mannered, Agent Harper, and I see he was right. He also said you were very much an American, arrogant, overconfident, and uncompromising. Tell me, Agent Harper, do you realize the irony that you would not have made it this far without the gift of Las Plagas, or do you, like your country, mean to turn our power against us and claim it as your own? Regardless, you pose no threat to me, nor I to you. Time is your enemy, Agent Harper, time I've been whiling away, time your president's daughter has little le-"

Helena cut the call. Saddler had nothing more useful to say, and her handheld's casing had already cracked in her increasingly tightening grip. She hastily pocketed it, getting it out of her hand before she could do further damage.

Luis was looking at her, she noticed, like a guilty man ready to confess. It was a look she had seen in her line of work, but few people displayed as much shame and remorse as Luis did.

"It's true what he said, Helena," he told her with a sigh. "When I came home two years ago, everyone in the village was already infected. All the children were dead, including my nieces and nephews…" he trailed off, stopping to clear his throat and discreetly wipe his eyes. "For two years, I helped further Saddler's cause. I personally had a hand in creating the gigantes, the novistadores and the regeneradores you have yet to see. By the time I completed the machine, the only family I had left was my grandfather. He... did not survive the operation."

"I used people, Helena, picked them out like… like cattle for slaughter, and for that, I am no better than Saddler. To me, they had no names, their faces forgettable, unimportant. I don't even remember how many of them I strapped down on my chair. They screamed, they suffered. Those are the things I remember. I killed them, Helena, so that my grandfather would have a chance to live."

When Luis finished talking, he was unable to look at her, his head bowed, his shoulders sagged.

Helena thought of Deborah, the only family she had left. There was no question that she would do for her sister what Luis had done for his grandfather.

But she wouldn't have tried to run.

"Your machine is the only thing that can save Ashley now," she said, her way of telling him that those villagers did not die for nothing like he thought. "But if we live through this, and you try to run again, I'm going to beat you within an inch of your life and drag you into a cell myself."

She headed off, not even sparing him a glance. Behind her, Luis let out a weak, humorless laugh before following.

* * *

They hit the tunnel soon enough, which brought them to a giant platform on a cliff. Instinctively crouching with Luis behind a line of boxes, Helena peeped outward over the platform and was afforded a view of the area ahead.

One of the guerrillas stood atop a small building, using the searchlight mounted on it as he kept watch. Crates, sandbags and equipment were scattered about, indicative of how long they had been occupying the post. The other visible guerrillas were on patrol, armed with knives, morning stars, cattle prods and, most concerning of all, guns.

"Shit," Helena whispered, ducking back behind the boxes. "They have firepower."

"Maldito," Luis cursed in his mother tongue. "I was wondering when the merchant's merchandise was going to turn up. What's the plan?"

"I have a silencer," she said, taking out her Picador. She would have preferred to use the sniper rifle for this, but one shot from it would give away their location. "I'll take out the ones on the walls and in clear sight," she told him. "When they notice us, take out the spotlight and clean up whatever I miss.

"Helena," Luis hesitated, seeming cautious. "Be careful. I don't know if your body can take any more punishment, pain or no pain."

"Don't worry about me," she said as the searchlight flooded passed over them. "We have to get to Ashley, that's all that matters. Now cover me."

"Alright," he relented, though uneasily.

Maybe he was starting to get it, she didn't care if she didn't live through this, only that Ashley had to be saved.

Not dwelling on it, she waited for the next cast of the searchlight to pass, and when it did, she silently rose out of cover and aimed her Picador at one of the ground patrols. She had to be quick about this, it wouldn't take long for the others to spot the bodies.

She quickly lined up a shot, well aware of the searchlight, and fired twice, hitting the patrol in the head and killing him. A nearby guerrilla noticed and rushed towards the body, forcing her to hurriedly gun him down. She shot him in the arm, chest and finally the throat, managing to kill him before he could get a shout off. She disposed of the next similarly, but couldn't take down another two guerrillas before the searchlight was aimed back at her.

"Shoot it out!" Helena whispered in a rush, not ducking down as the first hints of light hit her arm then went out.

She killed one of the two with two well-placed shots, but the other started firing back at them.

"Get down!" Luis hissed, grabbing her vest and yanking her back to the ground.

The remaining guerrilla shouted, and suddenly a spray of gunfire struck the boxes they'd taken cover behind. A shot eventually broke through, catching Helena in the vest. Luis pulled her further back into the tunnel for more protection.

"Grenades," he reminded her, unlatching the first from his belt as gunfire momentarily ceased with the guerrillas giving chase.

Helena grabbed her own grenade and waited for the footsteps to get close. She rolled it out onto the platform while Luis tossed his up half blindly over the boxes. As the guerrillas jumped over to the platform, the grenades blew up from under their feet, their cries sounding through the explosion.

"Let's go," she said, hurrying to round the corner and using her Hydra to shoot a flailing guerrilla into the water.

Waving Luis on behind her, she ran to the stone wall of the small building ahead. She did a quick check around the first corner and, finding the way clear, surged ahead through the first doorway of the run down building.

When she passed by a large, cracked window and a ladder, a guerrilla jumped her from around the bend, tackling her and falling with her. She flipped over quickly to shoot him point blank, but before she could make the turn, he swung a cattle prod at her. Instinctively, she reached out to block it and the prod caught her on the hand, the shock strong enough to immobilize her.

Luis hurried over, shooting the guerrilla in the back of the head and stunning him. Helena recovered, shoving him off and punching away her assailant with her burnt hand. Luis shot the guerrilla a few more times, making sure he was dead.

"Helena!" he cried out, seeing her hand.

"I can't feel it, Luis," she assured him, getting to her feet once again.

"It doesn't matter," he said, coming up to her and reaching for his pack. "You need to wrap this," he insisted, pulling free the wrap he'd used to cover the golden mask.

"We're in the middle of a fight here," she grumbled.

Luis ignored her and moved them back behind the wall, his expression serious.

"You're not going to make it to Ashley at this rate, Helena," he told her, and she scoffed.

"I'll get to her," she promised.

"It'd be nice if you could actually walk away with her, too," he added quietly, looking her in the eye.

She took the wrap halfway from him and finished the job, tucking it against her palm. Her hand was burnt badly, from her palm to her fingers, but she still registered no pain.

"Let's just get this done," she said as she reached for her magnum, going for a stronger gun with less ammo restriction.

She grasped the gun in her hand, not feeling any surge of pain but noting how raw it was. It was going to hurt if she got the plaga out of her body, but until then she could still work like this.

"Let's climb the ladder," she directed, "get a better view of what's behind here."

As she went up, she was met instead by the heavy set man with a machine gun. Standing at the upper edge of the platform, he spotted her once her head came up through the hole in the flat roof.

"Down, down!" she barked at Luis, shooting the man in the gut with her magnum as Luis hopped clean off the ladder.

She slid down a couple of steps, bullets spraying the floor and the hole where she'd just been.

"Get behind the wall!" she ordered, unlatching another grenade, remembering how her Picador's bullets had simply bounced off the man's thick head when she shot him in the castle tower.

She flung it up the hole and ran, the memory of his fat, meaty hands on Ashley only fueling her rage at him. The grenade went off, blowing out a chunk of ceiling on the other side of their wall, but she doubted it had killed him. Before she could worry about him too much, Luis checked around his side of the wall and his voice grew loud in alarm.

"RPG!" he yelped. "Helena, jump!"

He threw himself behind a lower stretch of wall and she jumped the opposite way, out into the open because she had no choice. In the middle of them both, the wall exploded with a deafening crack of stone as it shattered outward where they'd been crouching. The large man with the machine gun fell; the explosion had collapsed the roof supporting him.

Luis started shooting after the guerrilla with the RPG as the machine gunner rose up from the fall and turned red eyes on an exposed Helena. She shot him twice with the magnum, once in the shoulder, and once in the head, and was glad to see that the bullet had penetrated, but the man had already started to raise his machine gun.

She scrambled to her feet and jumped behind the only remaining side wall for cover, two bullets catching her vest from the back. She had no time to think about it and lobbed her third and last grenade, rolling on to her back quickly to have the magnum raised and ready by the time her assailant rounded the bend, bullets showering the dirt already. The grenade exploded under his feet and she added to the damage with her magnum, nailing him twice in the face and neck before he spun and fell, the rapid gunfire ceasing.

Helena hurried over to the fallen man to make sure he was dead, and he was, not a limb twitching. Her relief was short lived when she saw Luis on the ground a few feet away.

"Luis!" she called out, rushing over to him.

"I'm okay," Luis panted. "It caught me in the vest," he explained, "Just got the wind knocked out of me."

Helena dragged him by said vest behind some boxes for cover in case there were more of them.

"Can you check me?" she finally asked, turning her back to him. "I think they caught my vest, too, but…"

"You're clean," Luis said after a moment, and only then did she allow herself to breathe in relief again. "Good thing I got the vests, eh?"

She gave him an unamused look.

"Good thing I shot the merchant, you mean."

"And I still lost my scepter."

"You're going to lose all of it when they arrest you, you know."

"Confiscate!" he corrected her. "They're going to confiscate it. That means I might get it back."

"Don't hold your breath on that," she told him, shaking her head.

She glanced around their new cover, checking for more guerrillas. The path looked clear for now.

"Are we going to run into more of them in your passage?"

"It's not the known route," he said. "Saddler may not have thought to protect the shortcut passages. Then again, he knows you're with me, so it's possible."

"Great," she grumbled, "more gunmen."

"Maybe not though," he added, always seeming to find the bright side of things.

"Okay," she sighed, "lead the way."

* * *

Luis' passage brought them just outside the facility, the area suspiciously unguarded.

 _It's a trap,_  said a voice in her head that sounded like Ada.

"Has to be," she muttered, not realizing she had spoken out loud. "What?" she snapped when she noticed Luis staring at her strangely.

"Ah, Helena," Luis began cautiously, "you're not by any chance hearing voices, are you?"

Helena looked at him, giving him the strange look he had been giving her.

"What the hell are you talking about?" she said flatly.

Luis' expression turned serious, further confusing her.

"Helena, you said, 'has to be,' a moment ago. Now, it's very likely I misheard, but you sounded like you were responding to someone. That, or you talk to yourself but this is the first I've heard of it. I ask because I believe the plaga have a collective intelligence, and I think they communicate through high frequency sound waves. So, if you were hearing voices, it could mean-"

"I'm not hearing voices, Luis," Helena cut in, sounding snappier than she'd like. "I was just... thinking out loud," she said lamely, her face reddening.

That was a lie, she did just respond to Ada's voice. Imaginary Ada, she knew that, but she wasn't going to tell Luis she was imagining Ada's voice.

"I see," Luis said, staring at her again. "But why are you blushing?"

Helena twitched, barely resisting the urge to punch him.

"It's none of your damn business."

"I see," Luis repeated, sounding infuriatingly amused. "So, then," he said, wisely changing the subject, "you were saying?"

Helena glared at him a moment longer, then nodded towards the double doors leading into the building.

"No guards, no barricades. It's a trap."

Luis blinked, then looked around, seeming to just realize it himself.

"Now that you mention it…" he said, walking towards one of the doors. "One of the regenerador labs is in this facility. If Saddler set them loose, we may be in trouble."

"What exactly do they regenerate?" Helena asked, taking position at the other door.

"Yes, the research team wasn't very creative with some of the names," Luis drawled, but quickly turned serious again. "El Gigante, the novistadores? If, by comparison, those are mere by-products of our experiments, the regeneradores are what you would call a resounding success. They can regenerate any missing body part almost instantly, be it their limbs, their heads or any hole you happen to shoot in their body. Near indestructible, really."

Helena turned her eyes from the window on the door to Luis.

"Where's their plaga?"

"That is our other problem," Luis said. "They have several in their bodies, around three to four, and they're only visible via thermal imaging. Fortunately, I know where we can find an infrared scope for your rifle. Unfortunately, it's in the regenerador lab."

"Of course it is," Helena grumbled. "Is there any other way to kill them?"

"Enough firepower should do it, but I'd wager it's firepower we can't spare."

Helena swore. Luis was right, and she doubted the merchant would turn up here.

She looked at the window again, seeing the outline of a figure entering the dimly lit hallway. As it walked directly under the light, she saw that it was a tall white wolf with untamed fur that bristled from its body in every which way, its red eyes glowing. Another soon turned up, followed by three more, all of them looking towards the window.

Helena barely managed to duck and pull Luis down with her.

"What? What is it?"

"Wolves," she whispered, switching her Picador for her Hydra. "I don't think they saw us."

"Colmillos," Luis said, also keeping his voice down.

"What?"

"Infected wolves, that is what we call them."

"You call infected wolves 'fangs'?"

"As I've said, not very creative."

Helena shook her head at the response, wondering why she bothered to ask.

"At least it's not regeneradores," Luis said, bringing out his own shotgun. "The colmillos' plaga come out as long tentacles from their backs. They're very fast and tend to attack together, so it was wise to pick your shotgun, Helena."

"There's still a chance there are regeneradores further in," Helena added, preparing for the possibility.

Luis nodded.

"You know, I'm surprised the colmillos are here at all. Salazar kept most of them as pets. They were part of the trouble I ran into in the castle, chased me all over the maze. Of course, it didn't help I had a pack full of food."

"Food," she murmured, and just like that, she had an idea. "Luis, give me some of our food stores."

"What are you thinking of?" Luis asked with a suspicious eye cast at her.

"We can lure them out, sneak in and lock the doors," she suggested. "If we attack even one of them, they're all going to come for us. This way, we won't even have to waste bullets."

"No, we're just wasting the rations instead," he said, unimpressed.

"We'll just use a little bit," she said, waving him off.

"Easy to say when you don't feel hunger!"

"Fine," she responded, her tone challenging, "you pop your head over the window and shoot them."

"I wasn't saying it was a bad idea…" Luis mumbled, finally fishing into the bag and pulling out a small pack of dried jerky he'd saved up. "You can probably use this."

"I just need a few pieces," she told him, taking a small handful.

"How do you know they'll smell it over us?" he asked as he put the rest of the jerky back and zipped up his pack.

"We'll be upwind of the smell," she said. "Besides, neither of us smells very appetizing. I just took a bath in the lake and you still smell like sewer rat."

"It's not a lake!" Luis sputtered indignantly, completely ignoring her other comment. "Wait, are you teasing me, Helena?" he practically cooed, sounding amused now. "Did you just make a joke? How precious!"

"Shut up," she snapped, then waved him over to the other side of the door. "Crouch there, be ready to run to the door when I say so."

"And where will you be?" he asked as she went off to plant the food down the ways a little.

"Beside that wall after opening it."

"... this sounds like a dangerous plan."

"Oh, shut up. I gave you the easy part and you're still complaining."

"Yes, well, I don't relish it when you throw yourself in the way of a bomb either. I care about you, you know."

"Just be ready to run," she told him, going back to the side of the door and ducking down. "Here we go," she said, waving him down.

Taking a breath, she slowly pushed in the door about two feet, hearing low, growls coming from the hallway and towards them. She quickly ducked against the side wall, holding her breath to keep quiet.

She couldn't see them at first, but as the growls got louder, she saw the first wolf start down the hill with its nose to the ground. Three others followed, just as she had seen in the window. She was in perfect sight of them; if even one turned around and saw her, they'd all be on her in seconds. But for the moment, the wolves kept their snouts down, sniffing for the treat she left further down.

Judging it safe when they found the jerky, she snuck around the corner of the building to the door and waved across Luis. As he made a dash for it, a wolf lifted its head, turned, and looked back at them. It growled, turning away from the jerky to face him.

Helena was already at the door, only waiting for Luis to take the last few steps before the first of the wolves rushed for them. The moment Luis stepped in clear of the door, she slammed it behind him.

The barking sounded unexpectedly close, and she could see them through the window bounding over. She held the doors in.

"Luis!" she growled with the first bump of a frantic wolf against the door, their barks so loud it hurt her sensitive ears. "Find something to brace this door with."

"Right!"

Luis turned into a room to the left to find something. Glass was shattered in the small window, not enough for the wolves to get through, but paws and snouts could fit. She backed up her feet from the door and held it without feeling the effort, but she wondered if her arms might give way without warning from exhaustion alone.

"Hurry!" she called after Luis, the growling getting louder and starting to give her a headache.

She turned to see where Luis had disappeared to, in time to see a final red-eyed wolf leap at her seemingly out of nowhere.

She barely had a second to comprehend there was another wolf before another intercepted it mid-dive, smashing into the fifth wolf from the right side room and nowhere at once. The new wolf bit and started tearing at the other's throat with its teeth.

Helena's back was to the door, still holding it shut as Luis rushed in, Red9s drawn at the sound of commotion.

"Not the white one!" she shouted at the last second.

Luis shot the black wolf. It howled as plaga erupted from its back, tentacles flying, but another careful shot put the wolf straight down again. The white wolf mewled and pulled away, muzzle dirtied with blood from the other wolf.

Everyone was still for a moment, then Luis, with his gun still trained on the white one, uneasily said, "Helena…"

"I know this wolf," she told him, recognizing that injured leg, the punctures having come from a bear trap. "She saved my life," she said, and the wolf looked at her like it knew it was being talked about and let out a small whine.

"It's a wild animal, Helena…" Luis trailed off in protest.

"Don't hurt her, Luis," she snapped. "Are you going to get a brace for this door or what?"

"If it eats you while I find a brace, I'm going to feel very, very bad."

"Noted," she said, then shooed him off. "Now, find one."

He slowly, doubtfully left again, though she could see him staying close and leaving the door open just in case he had to rush back.

"Hey, girl," she called out gently, holding out a hand for the wolf. "Thanks," she said, looking at the dead wolf. "for that."

The wolf tilted her head, golden eyes shimmering bright. She was a big wolf, no doubt, standing both tall and formidable and with enough bulk to do damage. Her fur was off-white and dirty, more matted than the others, and she had mud all over her legs in addition to dried blood on her injured one, but Helena knew that fur was probably pure white when she was washed and she'd be quite a beautiful wolf without the bloodstains from her jowls and leg.

"You're not going to hurt me, are you, girl?" she said, speaking softly.

The wolf let off a soft whine, approached cautiously a few steps, then licked the tips of her fingers in a friendly manner.

"I'm back," Luis announced with a long pole in his arms. Helena moved slightly so he could slide it between the door handles and lock the outdoor wolves out for good.

"I'm going to have a look around," Luis said, warily glancing at the wolf one more time. "Here, Helena," he offered as he handed her his pack. "I wouldn't want to give any more colmillos more reasons to kill me, and it looks to me like your canine friend is hungry."

With a wave, Luis headed out. Helena first looked at the pack in her hands, then at the wolf, who was staring at her with wide, curious gold eyes. She opened the pack, trying to find something suitable enough for a wolf. They didn't have much left, a few energy bars, some crackers, chips and what was left of the jerky they used as bait.

She grabbed the jerky and placed the pack on the ground, the wolf's eyes fixated on the food she just fished out. As she reached into the plastic bag to get a strip, the wolf fidgeted about but remained seated, anxiously licking her lips.

 _She's acting like a pet dog,_  Helena thought, having suspected before that the wolf was domesticated in some capacity.

Slowly, she held out her hand to the wolf, the strip of jerky on her palm. The wolf sniffed curiously and froze, eyes lighting up, then quickly gobbled up the entire strip, barely chewing it before begging for another.

"Wow, you are hungry," she said, feeding the wolf another strip.

Figuring the wolf was also thirsty, searched the immediate area for something that would make a suitable enough bowl. She found a small tray and set it down in front of the wolf, taking one of their last two bottles. She gave to the wolf what would have been her share if she still felt thirst, though she did have a little for herself first for the sake of rehydrating.

Again, the wolf sniffed at the offering, then began to drink in earnest. Helena cautiously placed her hand on the back of the wolf's neck, and when the wolf just stopped for a moment and resumed drinking, she began to pet the animal. Sure that the wolf was completely at ease with her, she checked the leg that had been injured by the bear trap.

It looked to be healing well for an injury that didn't receive any treatment, and there didn't seem to be any signs of infection. It also appeared to be the worst of the wolf's injuries, the rest were minor scrapes from the brief scuffle with the colmillos.

"Way's clear," she heard Luis say loudly from a distance, loud footsteps heading their way. "Next room leads to the regenarador labs," he said as he approached them, looking at the wolf with an uneasy expression. "I found more cages ahead, and more dead wolves. If I had to guess, I'd say the wolves were somehow loosed and attacked the colmillos, and the colmillos retaliated. Your canine friend is very lucky, or very smart, maybe both."

"Do you think she's infected?" Helena asked, absently petting the wolf.

"It's more likely than not that she is, Helena," Luis answered, watching the wolf for a moment. "The good news is, the plaga is nowhere near mature. She and the other wolves must have been very recently brought in."

Helena nodded.

"I saw her earlier when we were heading to Pueblo. She was caught in a bear trap and I freed her."

"And now she's returned the favor," Luis remarked in amusement, finally seeming to relax around the wolf. "Without the right equipment, I can't tell whether or not the plaga eggs have hatched. Unless she coughed blood while I was gone…?"

"No," she said, then her hand stalled mid-pet, an idea coming to her. "There's a chance the eggs haven't hatched? Would the drugs you made work for her?"

Luis didn't respond immediately, seeming surprised by the question.

"It's not something I've tried, but it should work. But, Helena, how exactly would you go about that? The pills are nowhere near as attractive or delicious as jerky, and I don't think you should be prying her mouth open. She has sharp teeth, very, very sharp teeth."

"You just answered your own question," Helena said, reaching into her pocket for the bottle. "How many should I give her? Two?"

"Yes, I think so, but how are you going to-"

"Like this," she replied before he even finished asking, taking a strip of jerky and rolling it with a pill tucked in.

She held it up to the wolf, who stopped drinking and ate the jerky without issue. The second roll was devoured similarly, and soon all the water was gone.

"Wow," Luis murmured, shocked and impressed.

"Never had a pet dog?" Helena asked, going back to petting the wolf, much to the animal's delight.

Luis chuckled.

"Pet dog? Yes. Pet wolf? No."

Helena snorted but didn't comment. The wolf blinked at her, head tilted.

"So, Helena," Luis said, "is she... coming with us?"

She didn't say anything and simply looked at him, silently daring him to keep playing dumb. At the same time, the wolf turned to him, regarding him curiously.

Luis looked between them, then laughed.

"Well, how can anyone say no to that face?"

* * *

"Be ready for them," Luis warned as they stood before a door with a circular window they could peep through.

It looked pretty dank and misused for a building they conducted active research in, Helena noted, but at least it had lights, dim they may be.

"Is there a way to keep your canine companion from pouncing on the regeneradores?" Luis asked.

"Why?" she asked back, regarding him suspiciously.

"The regeneradores bite."

She scoffed, feeling pettily offended on the wolf's behalf.

"So does my wolf."

Luis gave her a hapless glance.

"If you think she can take it…"

Helena's new pet nudged her hand with a wet nose, as if understanding and reassuring her. She stroked back between the wolf's fluffy, upright ears while she pondered. There was no way to tell if the wolf would follow specific instructions from her, but Helena knew she was no weakling, having survived for this long against both the plaga and the colmillos.

"She'll be fine," she told Luis. "Don't worry about my wolf, worry about getting us those scopes and finding Ashley. You really think she's in this place?"

"There's more than one holding cell in here we use for test studies," Luis explained. "Saddler is just stalling us now, waiting for the plaga to mature. Keeping us busy with colmillos, ganados and regeneradores would do the trick. The old man's overconfident, too, I really wouldn't put it past him to keep Ms. Graham in the same facility he's stalling us in."

"Alright," Helena agreed, though she wasn't thrilled with idea of finding Ashley in a place like this. The girl had been through enough already. "Let's get going."

"Heading in," Luis affirmed, pushing the door in and carefully starting in ahead of her.

The shelves around them were stocked, from medical equipment to jars, canisters, and appliances, none of which were food items and all of which she found concerning. They passed the shelves and what looked to be a kitchen, slabs of rotting meat hanging from hooks.

She wrinkled her nose and even saw her dog turn away from it.

 _God,_  she thought, _it reeks._

"Ugh, did all of you eat rotten meat?" she groaned as her wolf started sniffing around on the floor, for what, she couldn't imagine.

"I don't work back here," Luis replied defensively. "We're on the other side of the building."

"Surprise you couldn't smell it from there," she muttered, making a face. Her wolf started to wander, nose stuck to the ground. "Girl," she called, following after her, "Where you going? What'd you find?"

The white wolf yipped in an unusually high tone, one she hadn't heard from her before.

"Shh!" Luis quieted anxiously.

"Girl, what is it?" Helena asked, following her wolf around the corner.

She came upon a burnt, charred body on the ground. The wolf licked her jowls and moved close to the naked body, her tongue flicking out at it.

"Girl, no," she reprimanded her wolf, gently grabbing her by the scruff of her neck to stop her. "That is not food, don't eat that," she said, pulling her back from the body.

The wolf whined, looking after the charred meat feast with sadness.

"Control her!" Luis hissed, checking around a further corner beyond them to make sure they hadn't been heard.

"She's just hungry," Helena responded, growling at him. "Here, girl," she called her wolf, reaching into her pocket and pulling out one of the few jerky strips she had left. It was a small one, granted, but she didn't know when she'd need them again.

"You know what your wolf needs?" Luis asked playfully as he waved them over.

"Besides a large meal?" she mumbled, luring the wolf towards Luis with the jerky strip and rewarding it to her when they reached him.

"A name," he said, sounding proud of himself.

"That so?" she drawled, humoring him.

With her wolf finally cooperating, sad as she might be to trot along without her crispy treat, Helena walked freely beside Luis with her sniper rifle held in a hand.

"Yep," Luis chimed, speaking softly, but surely. "You should call her Duckling."

Helena looked at her proud wolf, then at Luis and the stupid grin on his face.

"Duckling," she repeated flatly, unimpressed.

The wolf made a confused sound, then tilted her head at Luis, gold eyes blinking at him.

"Duckling," he exclaimed cheerfully. "She took to you like a baby duck imprinting. Duckling!"

"I'm not naming her Duckling," Helena said gruffly.

The wolf nuzzled her hand, as if in thanks.

"It's a cute name."

"My girl is strong," she snapped. "Not cute."

"She kind of reflects her mistress, eh?"

Helena narrowed her eyes at him for the remark, but he just continued on without noticing until something clattered ahead. They both froze, the wolf following suit when Helena stopped, glancing at her for instruction.

"Is it one of them?" she asked Luis.

Luis ducked his head behind one of the shelves to check.

"Aye, Agent Harper."

She slapped him upside the back of the head briskly.

"Knock it off," she growled.

"Hey," he whined, rubbing the back of his head. He reached down to his belt, pulling loose one an incendiary grenade. "Can you keep Duckling moving with us?"

"Her name is not Duckling."

"Same question," he casually repeated without so much as a flinch. "I can burn it and we'll run past while it's regenerating, but we can't wait around if your wolf starts to linger. We don't have the scopes yet."

As her wolf started to growl, Helena nestled a hand at the nape of her neck.

"I'll keep her moving," she told Luis.

With a nod, Luis lobbed the grenade down the hall. At the opposite end, the regenerador, a humanoid, dark-colored figure, turned at the rolling click of the grenade striking the ground, its front looking much worse than its back. Helena had about a second to see its face, mouth hanging open with fangs too big to fit in it, all sharp as a shark's. Its red eyes gleamed from its small sockets a second before the incendiary grenade went off, fire lighting up the ground under it and engulfing it.

"Let's go!" Luis said, running towards it with his shotgun out and ready.

Helena followed, her sniper rifle in one hand, the other firmly but gently leading her wolf by the nape of her neck. Even as they approached the regenerador, its limbs were already starting to regenerate at an alarming rate.

Luis blasted it once with his shotgun as he passed, proving a wise move as the regenerador attempted to snap at them with its teeth. Helena hurried on with her wolf, who seemed to understand when she gave her a guided tug to pass the monster. She glanced at it, and what a revolting sight it made, its misshapen body thrashing on the floor.

They entered a room with barred arches and a curving stairwell down to a second basement level. Helena's wolf suddenly started barking, then escaped her grasp as a cry in Spanish rang out from below.

"Guerrillas," Helena said, raising her sniper rifle to the shouter she saw through the bars down below.

"Let's not take long," Luis commented, glancing nervously down the long, twisting hallway where they left the regenerador.

Helena shot off a guerrilla's half-armored head as two others rushed up the stairs, armed with morning stars and makeshift wooden shields. The wolf jumped the first of two, landing on his shield and knocking him off balance. He fell down the stairs, the wolf riding the shield on his chest like a sled. Leaving Luis to handle the other guerrilla, Helena ran to the stairs and raised her sniper rifle.

"Girl!" she shouted, prompting the wolf to pop off the fallen guerrilla's chest as he made a grab for her, and then quickly put him down with a shot to the chest and to the neck.

With the guerrilla dead, her wolf trotted faithfully back up to her.

"Good girl," she murmured, pulling out another very small strip of jerky for the wolf.

"Let's keep moving," Luis said, leading them to a door. "They have guards here, good chance Ms. Graham is being held in one of the cells nearby."

"The regenerador is capable of cooperating with the guerrillas?" she asked him, having thought the regenerador was similar to the garrador.

"That was odd," Luis admitted. "The regeneradores are even more indiscriminate than the garradors, Saddler's control on our experiments is weaker. Perhaps this one wandered off and they let it be."

Entering a room, he pointed immediately to a few bullet holes in a blockade of chalkboards in the room, which led down a pathway. Helena followed, her hand drifting to her wolf's scruff again, not wanting her charging into crossfire. Her wolf seemed to understand and didn't bark or run on ahead this time, though she growled lowly once.

"Helena…" came a familiar voice, muffled by static.

Helena stiffened up instantly, then shot on ahead. There was a guerrilla sitting with a row of monitors, the screens displaying different areas of the compound. Probably having seen them coming, he was ready with his gun out and shot at Helena, but only hit her bulletproof vest twice before her arm was around his neck, snapping it. He fell lifelessly to the floor.

"Dios," Luis mumbled in shock.

"Close the door," she told him as she headed straight for the monitors.

She saw regeneradores awkwardly pacing about in halls of the laboratories, guerrillas in the immediate vicinity, and then her gaze fixated on one screen, where Ashley, who sat curled up with her knees up, arms around them in the corner of a small, lonely cell. She gave an occasional whimper now and again, and mentioned Helena's name more than once.

Helena reached back for Luis as soon as he was close and yanked him over to the screen.

"Where is that?" she asked.

"They're the holding cells I was talking about," he explained. "They're a little past the laboratories, but… I don't have a key for her cell, Helena. The access keys I've taken from the other researchers will only work in the science area, I'm afraid."

"Would the guards have it?"

"In a way…" he trailed off. "A regenerador seems to have it."

"What?" she growled, confused and annoyed. "Why the hell would a regenerador have it?"

"Because look," he said, pointing to one of the screens where a regenerador, whose body was covered in spikes, had a key card attached to his hip that glistened on the dim screen.

"What the fuck," she cursed. "Tell me you at least know which room it's in."

"I do," he assured her, managing a grin. "I know exactly where that iron maiden is."

"Iron maiden," she muttered, unimpressed with its name. "What's the quickest route to the freezer with the least resistance?" she asked, turning back to the monitors.

Luis took a gander at the screens.

"Well, it looks like we've got ganados from here on out until we hit the labs, which is only in this one spot," he murmured. "They seem to have quarantined the rest of the regeneradores in the science areas. Maybe that other one really did just escape, eh?"

"So?" she pressed, not amused.

"So, I've got the route and it's not far to the labs," he confirmed, backing away from the monitors. "But we're still going to encounter some resistance on the way there, especially when we hit the labs with the regeneradores. They're right past this next area."

"Alright, I'll follow your lead," she said, looking down the slender pathway to a blue door on the other end of the room.

"Funny, it doesn't feel that way," he remarked, chuckling.

Helena's wolf came over to her and rubbed against her leg. She petted her wolf between the ears again before carrying on after Luis.

* * *

The next area had them dealing with guerrillas who employed a sort of hit and run tactic by utilizing a bullet proof roller door. With firepower back up, they threw dynamite and then quickly had the door closed, a process they seemed equipped to keep up for hours. Helena had neither the patience or the time and so, in a move Luis called stupid and crazy, she managed to roll a grenade past the door as it was closing.

The guerrillas made a run for it, but the blast of the grenade still caught them. It didn't kill them, instead making their plagas come out. Helena cursed, hating that she had to use a flash grenade to finish off the guerrillas.

"Alright, it worked, I'll give you that," Luis conceded, "but if those bullets hadn't hit your vest, I don't think I'd be congratulating you, Helena. You got lucky, and if I were you I wouldn't tempt the fates again any time soon."

"Yeah," was her only response, spoken quietly and noncommittally.

They continued on, encountering one more guerrilla who was armed with a morning star. Her wolf lunged, biting his leg, and Luis gunned him down with the Striker shotgun.

"Good girl," she praised her wolf, petting her affectionately.

They reached a set of gray double doors, the windows spattered with what looked like dried blood.

"Is there any way you can keep Duckling from attacking the regeneradores?" Luis asked, looking at the wolf in concern.

"I'll try," Helena said, reaching for the wolf's nape with one hand and her Hydra with the other. "I'll hold her if I have to."

Her wolf looked at her, seeming to understand the gesture, then pawed at the edge of the door, whining softly. Helena gave her wolf a rewarding pet, but kept her hand on her nape.

"Here we go," Luis said, opening the door and stepping into the dark hallway. "Lights are out, hopefully the power isn't."

Helena reached behind her ear and switched on her tactical light, casting a faint illumination ahead of them so they could see. Luis quietly closed the door behind them and they slowly ventured on.

A moment later, she heard something, faint at first but steadily getting louder. It was someone - something - breathing, the heavy, stuttered rasps that sounded so forced and rabid it almost seemed unnatural for it to breathe.

"This way," Luis whispered, leading them away.

Hearing a growl, Helena tightened her hold on her wolf, not painfully, but enough to have a good grip on her if she took off.

She stopped, hearing another rasp that sounded startlingly close. She grabbed the back of Luis' shirt, snagging him only seconds before he rounded another corner, and suddenly, a regenerador lunged, arms out and reaching for Luis.

Luis squawked in surprise and abruptly fired his shotgun, hitting the regenerador in the chest. It only staggered back from the blast, needing another two shots to be knocked down and then one from Helena's Hydra for good measure.

"Come on," Luis mumbled, his voice slightly shaky.

The regenerador already reconstructing itself, Helena hurried off with Luis, walking with her wolf as she kept the way ahead lit with her tactical light. She heard more rasping and shuffling, not just from the regenerador on the floor. The other regeneradores were coming for them.

Kicking through a bolted, chained gate that Luis pointed her to, she heard regeneradores from either side. One emerged from a side hallway, breaking right into their route, and another burst out of the double doors that led to the freezer room.

"Fucking locks," Helena growled, blasting into the first regenerador from her angle while Luis shot at the second, her wolf straining in her unbreakable hold.

The regenerador in front of her went still, gray, black and yellow liquid spurting from the stump of the arm she had blown off, the limb reforming fast. She quickly shot off its leg, dropping it to the floor.

"Hold them off!" she ordered Luis, leading her wolf to the freezer room and kicking the doors open. "Come on!" she called to him, just in time it looked like, as the regeneradores were growing limbs faster than he could shoot them. She couldn't back him up, her Hydra out of ammo and one of her hands still holding on to her wolf.

Luis scurried over to them, a regenerador on the floor reaching out for his ankle. Helena forcibly stepped on the outstretched hand, crushing it, and Luis finally made it through the doors.

"Agh!"

Helena turned, seeing the other regenerador with its mouth latched on Luis' right shoulder, its maw so big and wide it could have easily engulfed Luis' head whole. Acting quickly, she struck the regenerador's nape with her Hydra, the blow strong enough to dislodge it from Luis, and hurriedly shoved the stunned BOW past the closing doors.

"Med kit, med kit," Luis mumbled, grabbing his shoulder and heading towards the side room.

Not as willing to drop her guard, Helena lingered with her wolf by the doors to wait and see if they would hold against the regenerador outside. She watched Luis go, but her gaze soon strayed to scan the freezer room, particularly the rows of regenerador bodies at the center that hung from the ceiling like butchered livestock. The BOWs appeared lifeless, but for how long, she wondered.

Her wolf sniffed, then made a face. She petted the disgruntled animal, sharing the sentiment.

"Failed experiments, Helena, subjects that didn't survive the final phases but useful enough to keep around to further our research. They won't trouble us," Luis assured her as he fumbled through his pockets, eventually finding a card key and using it on a wall panel.

The door to the side room opened without incident, and though Helena knew Luis had gone out of his way for those access codes, it was equally unsettling how little effort Saddler seemed to put into strengthening the security in his own laboratories.

 _Is he just stalling us?_  she thought, growling quietly

"The scopes are in there," Luis said, pointing to a chamber as he went for the wall mounted first aid kit on the opposite wall. "Aiyiyi, this is deep," he hissed after baring his wounded shoulder. "That is going to leave a very unattractive mark. I do not think I can get away with saying I got this from an overly enthusiastic bedmate."

Helena, in the process of fixing one of the scopes on her sniper rifle, could only shake her head at Luis' uncanny ability to make jokes at the strangest time. She snuck a glance at the hanging regenerador bodies once more, still not relaxed despite Luis' assurance. Her wolf looked equally tense, seeming ready to lunge at the slightest movement in the room.

Luis, leaving his shoulder unattended for a moment, reached for his pack and dug into it, this time coming up with a bottle of pills.

"These should do it," he seemed to say to himself, taking three and popping them in his mouth. "We never confirmed if regeneradores can transfer the plaga with their saliva, no one exactly stayed alive long after being bitten by a regenerador," he said, his tone now humorless.

"You had another bottle?" Helena asked in surprise, having recognized the pills as the same ones Luis had given to her and Ashley for their plaga.

Luis blinked, looking back at her equally surprised.

"Of course I do, Helena," he said, now staring at her queerly. "You didn't think so? I thought that's why you didn't panic when the novistadores made off with Ms. Graham." He paused then, as if realizing what he just said, then added, "Well, I suppose that was the last thing in your mind, considering the circumstances."

The moment he stopped talking, one of the regenerador bodies dropped to the ground.

"Must have been loose," Luis said with a shrug.

The body twitched, then began to move.

"Or not," he mumbled sheepishly, looking embarrassed.

"I knew it," Helena snarled, stepping in front of her wolf to discourage her from charging ahead. "There's another rifle over there," she calmly told Luis as she lined up her shot. "Get the other scope and grab it."

"Shoot its plaga!" Luis reminded her, then rushed to get the gun and scope.

Easily seeing plaga through the thermal scope, Helena quickly fired at the first she saw and sent the regenerador reeling. Her wolf, as she had when Luis had been bitten, remained at her side, though she did growl at the BOW.

"These were all dead last I checked, I swear to you," she heard Luis say as he fumbled with his own rifle and scope, his injured shoulder making the task difficult. "They must have mixed in a live one in there to get us."

 _Maybe more than just one,_  Helena thought, taking out the other two plagas on the regenerador.

The regenerador seized again, but soon began flail and writhe on the ground.

"What the hell?" she mumbled in disbelief. "Why isn't it dead?"

"There's one on its back," Luis said like it was an afterthought.

"And you waited until now to tell me?" she grumbled, then focused back on the regenerador that had already back on its feet.

She shot its leg, dropping it back on the ground. She took aim at the last plaga, but as she pulled the trigger, it curled its body and sprang, launching itself towards her with its mouth agape.

"Shit!" she swore, barely ducking in time to avoid it.

As Luis struggled to help, she pulled her wolf away and switched to her Hydra, needing to keep a hand on her wolf to reign her in. She took advantage of the regenerador's sluggish recovery and shot point blank at its back, remembering where the plaga was. It reeled as it had before, then went still, finally dead.

Keeping the sniper trained on the hanging bodies, Helena slowly moved closer to Luis with her wolf.

"There may be more," she told him, sparing him a quick glance. "I'll help you with your shoulder when it's safe."

"Okay," he responded in a strained voice. "I think it pierced to the bone."

She fired a couple of rounds at the regenerador bodies, attempting to draw out any more live ones. She waited, then fired off another round and then waited again. When nothing happened, not a sound or a twitch from anywhere in the room, she lowered her weapon and went to Luis' side.

"We should hurry," she said, ripping off his sleeve where blood stained through and helping him remove his flak jacket. "Good thing you had this on," she said, noting the large puncture marks on the jacket, no doubt taking the brunt of the regenerador's bite. "It probably saved your arm."

"Told you I was smarter than I looked," Luis joked in a strained voice, the smile he attempted looking more like a grimace. As she cleaned and wrapped his shoulder, he said, "We should fix you up, too."

"Later," she replied dismissively and glanced at the doors, where she could hear regeneradores gathering and shuffling about outside. "When we're not cornered," she added, then finished wrapping his arm and ripped off the end of it to tape it in place. "Not too tight?"

"Not at all," Luis said, managing an actual smile as he picked up his vest to put back on. "Thank you, Helena. You have a surprisingly gentle touch, has anyone ever told you that?"

Ignoring him, Helena turned to her wolf and called her over with a soft, "Here, girl."

Her wolf eagerly approached her, and remained pleasantly well behaved as she cleaned and covered her injured leg. Helena went about it quickly to save the wolf discomfort, and when she stood again, Luis had armed his own sniper rifle with a scope.

"Incredible," he murmured, chuckling and shaking his head in obvious amusement.

"What?" she demanded, annoyed and confused.

"You even take care of the wolf before you take care of yourself," Luis pointed out, then coughed on a laugh. "Hell, you even took care of me before that."

"Shut up," she growled, rising to her feet to pick up her sniper rifle from the table.

"And you take it as an insult!" Luis exclaimed, laughing in earnest.

Before Helena could hiss back at him, the doors burst open, the latch in the center finally giving, and three regeneradores stumbling inside.

"Go through them!" Luis yelled, pulling a grenade from his belt. "The exit isn't far, follow me!"

As the three regeneradores writhed on the floor from the grenade, Helena guided her wolf away and they ran out the doors. Luis took an immediate right turn when they exited the gated area and Helena followed him down a narrow hallway until they reached a steel door with a panel. Luis swiped a card on the panel, the reneradors right on their heels. Helena went in first with her wolf and Luis followed, hurriedly shutting the door behind them.

"Let's see them break through that," he said, a little out of breath.

"Where are we heading?" she asked, still holding on to her wolf.

Luis nodded.

"To waste disposal, we can reach Ms. Graham through it. I doubt they have any more regeneradores about, but I did see the iron maiden up ahead, beyond her cell." He stopped then, noticing her staring at him, and said, "The regenerador with the spikes. Iron maiden. Yes? We've discussed this, Helena, not the most creative with names."

"What else is different about this one?"

"Other than the spikes, you mean? It's much tougher than an ordinary regenerador, also more aggressive," Luis went on, then added, "We're more than likely to run into more ganados on the way to Ms. Graham's cell. Saddler does know we're here, and I'm beginning to suspect he either means to kill us or stall us."

"Yeah, I think so, too," she muttered, silently cursing Saddler and his games. "Tell me when we're close," she told Luis, and then headed down the narrow hall, her wolf right behind her.

* * *

They reached what looked to be the waste disposal control room. There was a door leading out and a large bay window overlooking the ground floor. Below, guerrillas milled about near the massive dumpsters, guarding the area. Helena raised her rifle, intending to shoot through the glass and pre-emptively kill one.

"Wait!" Luis suddenly shouted, waving his arms in front of her.

"What the hell," she growled, having been so close to pulling the trigger.

Luis simply held up a hand to her and went over to the controls. He then pointed to a large crane across through the window and turned to her with a big grin.

"See that? I can use it to dump the ganados in the disposal chute," he declared, already tinkering with the control panel.

"They can't possibly be that stupid," she muttered, keeping her weapon trained on the guerrillas but allowing Luis a chance to try.

He moved the crane over one of the guerrillas and lowered it, surprisingly catching the man unaware and plucking him up with ease. He squawked and flailed as the others scattered about, hiding behind the giant dumpsters. Even as Luis dropped the guerrilla into the giant chute, the others remained huddled in cover, not one of them thinking to check the control room.

"What the hell," Helena found herself saying again, watching the whole thing in disbelief.

Luis laughed, going for another attempt.

"Hah, look at that! Two at once!"

Helena shook her head, unable to fathom how Luis could have fun at a time like this. She lowered her rifle, watching as he dumped the pair of guerrillas and went for the rest. It wasn't difficult, the remaining guerrillas continued to cower behind the dumpsters, doing nothing more than shouting and shooting feebly at the crane.

"And that's how you do it," Luis said as he dropped the last guerrilla.

"We're lucky none of them thought of coming up here," she remarked. "Good thinking on the crane, though, it saved us ammo," she said, walking out the door with her wolf. "How much farther?"

"Just around the corner from the chute," Luis answered, jogging to catch up with her as they made their way across said area.

They went up a set of stairs, passed what looked like an empty conference room, and soon arrived at the holding cells. Luis held up a hand, indicating they had to be quiet, and lead them to take cover behind a wall separating them from the other half of the area. Helena's wolf began to growl, and she reacted fast, petting her and speaking soothingly to her until she stopped.

"Do you have any grenades left?" she asked Luis, keeping her voice low.

"None on me," Luis whispered back. "You?"

"Just three," she said, quietly moving to the end of the wall to peek into the hallway ahead.

Catching a glimpse of armed guerrillas patrolling their way, she took one of her grenades and flung it at the group. The moment it went off, they hurried past the incapacitated guards, Helena finishing off the survivors as they went.

They turned a corner and into another hall that led to one of the cells, at the end of which stood two tall, bulky men armored in thick, crude plates, one wielding a sledgehammer and another armed with a morning star. Suddenly, her wolf broke free from her lax grip and bounded ahead, lunging at one of the men and knocking him over. Helena sprinted towards the other, Luis following her, and together they gunned down the other, shooting the unprotected areas of his body.

"Girl!" Helena called, prompting her wolf to break away from the downed man and return to her side.

Her wolf safe, she and Luis killed the guard, not even giving him a chance to reach the morning star on the floor.

"Helena?" came a familiar voice from the other side of the cell door. "Helena, is that you?"

Hearing the frantic, desperate call, Helena turned towards the door and saw Ashley peeking through the small window and gripping the bars on it.

"Ashley!" she cried out, rushing to the girl.

"Helena," Ashley breathed, so relieved to see her she was nearly in tears. "You're here, you came for me."

"Yeah," she murmured back, attempting to smile reassuringly as she extended her free hand, which Ashley eagerly took with both of hers. "We're getting you out of there, okay? We know where the key is, we just have to-"

With a loud gurgle, one of the guards sprang to his feet, moving surprisingly fast. He shoved Luis aside and grabbed Helena around the back, swinging the morning star at her. She felt the pressure of it piercing into her side, but not the pain.

"Dios!" she heard Luis yelp while Ashley called her name in alarm.

She shrugged off the guard, her enhanced strength making it easy. He stumbled and fell back on the ground, giving Luis the opportunity to open fire. Luis expended nearly half a dozen shotgun shells on the guard, making certain he was dead, and proceeded to do the same to the other.

The threat gone, Helena accessed her most recent injury, first seeing the deep scrapes on the back of her arm and then the morning star, some of its spikes protruding out of her side.

"Oh, my God," Ashley mumbled in horror, making a strangled noise as Helena pried the weapon off. "Helena, are you-"

"I'm okay," Helena hastily told both Ashley and Luis, not even giving him the chance ask. She dropped the morning star and turned to Luis. "I'll get the key, stay here with them. Is the iron maiden-"

"No," Luis cut her off, shaking his head. "You stay here, Helena," he told her, staring at the fresh blood at her side, visible even under the vest and the jacket she wore. "I know where the iron maiden is, I'll get the key," he said as he took from his bag the other med kit he had taken from the freezer room.

He then nodded towards Ashley, who looked at her pleadingly, silently asking her to stay, and Helena hadn't the will to protest after seeing the look on the girl's face.

"Okay," she relented, taking the med kit from him.

Luis left his pack and other guns with them, taking only the sniper rifle and extra rounds before going off. Once he was out of view, Helena turned back to Ashley, stepping as close as she could to the girl.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "Did they hurt you? Did they do anything to you?"

"No," Ashley responded softly, her voice shaking. "They didn't do anything to me, they just put me in this cell. I think they were going to take me somewhere but it looked like they changed their minds. Maybe they found out you were coming?"

"Could be. Saddler knows we're here," she agreed, reaching for the pack Luis left with them.

They were so close, she thought. They just needed to get to Luis' machine, get out of range of the jamming signal and call for the extraction team. Just a little more, she told herself, and Ashley would be on her way home, safe, cured, and free of Saddler and the plaga.

"Here," she said, handing food, water and the bottle of pills through the bars. "Take the pills first, and you have all of that, okay? I've already set some aside."

Ashley gratefully took the offered items, saying a soft, "Okay," as she did.

Before doing anything else, Ashley reached for her hand, grasping tightly.

"Helena," the girl started, eyes becoming teary. "Thank you… for coming for me."

Helena looked in Ashley's eyes and nodded, squeezing her hand comfortingly. At her side, her wolf pawed at the door, prompting her to use her other hand to pet the agitated animal.

"Go eat," she gently urged Ashley. "Luis will be back soon. I'll be right here."

"Okay," Ashley said, squeezing her hand back before slowly letting go.

* * *

"I'm back!" Luis announced, sprinting towards them with the card key in hand.

"Are you okay?" Helena asked, stepping aside to let him use the key but still holding on to Ashley, who, after finishing the food and water, had gone back to clutching her hand as they waited for Luis.

"It gave me some trouble," Luis started conversationally as he accessed the panel, "but he's not much use when he doesn't know where you are. Salazar calls me a rat, yes? It has some merit, I hide in places even the BOWs in this island haven't found out about yet."

"Good thing," Helena murmured in good nature, though she was distracted, her focus mainly on the girl whose hand she was holding. "Ashley," she called softly, "we're opening the door, okay?"

"Okay," Ashley said, reluctantly releasing her hand.

As soon as the door opened, Ashley flung herself at Helena, her trembling arms wrapped tight around her neck. She hugged the girl back in earnest, glad there was no longer a wall between them.

"Helena," Ashley suddenly gasped, pulling away, "your injuries, we have to take care of them!"

Luis also shot her a reprimanding look before she could answer.

"In the time it took for me to kill an iron maiden, you couldn't be bothered to close one open wound?" he said, sighing in obvious exasperation. "I'm really beginning to wonder if you have any sense of self-preservation, Helena."

"I'm fine," she snapped at Luis, her ire fully directed at him.

"You're hurt!" Ashley repeated, shocked she had to repeat herself. "Where's the med kit? I'll take care of you myself since you're obviously not going do it."

"We don't have time-" she tried to protest, but was immediately silenced with a single glare from Ashley. "Okay," she relented, not wanting to argue, "fix my side and then we're going."

"No," Luis said, shaking his head. "You have other injuries that need tending, Helena, and we're not leaving until it's done."

She scowled at him, wondering when he had gotten so bossy and why he was getting away with it.

"What?" Ashley blurted, clutching the med kit she had just retrieved to her chest. "Helena, you can't keep walking around injured!" she declared, marching over with a determined expression. "We're not going anywhere until you're taken care of, and the sooner that happens, the sooner we can go. Now get in here and sit."

"You heard the lady," Luis drawled, grinning in a way that could only be described as shit-eating.

Resisting the urge to punch him, Helena glared at him instead and then grudgingly followed Ashley into the cell, her wolf trotting in after her.

"Oh, my God!" Ashley squeaked upon seeing the bloodstained wolf, flattening against the wall with impressive speed.

"Don't worry," Helena hastily assured the girl, feeling a little sheepish that she had forgotten to mention her wolf earlier. "She won't hurt us," she said, petting the wolf to demonstrate.

"Oh," Ashley breathed, inching off the wall, moving slowly and cautiously as she continued to eye the wolf. "Where… where did you find a wolf? Why do you have a wolf?" the girl asked incredulously, turning to her with wide eyes.

"She was taken to this facility along with other wolves," Helena told the girl as she took a seat on a nearby bench. "She saved us from the infected wolves and has been with us since. I also saw her earlier on my way to the village and freed her from a bear trap. She seems to remember me."

"That's amazing," Ashley murmured, tentatively placing her hand on the wolf's head to pet. "Wow," she said when the wolf not only welcomed the petting but also licked her hand affectionately, "she's very friendly."

"She is," Helena agreed, nodding. "She must have been someone's pet before."

"Or she just really likes you," Ashley remarked in a slightly playful tone, petting the wolf one last time. "Okay, Helena, take off your jacket and vest. I need to see your injuries."

"She'll have to take off more than that," Luis quipped, and Helena couldn't stop herself from scowling at him. "What? I'm saying truthfully!" he claimed innocently, pointedly looking at Ashley. "It was not an exaggeration when I said she had many injuries!"

Helena was about to snap at him, but Ashley, with a withering look and her hands on her hips, had her nearly sinking in her seat instead. Luis chuckled, making no secret of how amused he was.

"I'm going to leave you ladies to it, call if you need help," he said, turning his back on them as he resumed reloading his guns.

Helena looked down to see her wolf nudging her hand, as if telling her to be brave. She then looked at Ashley, who regarded her expectantly. Relenting to the silent request, she entered the cell but didn't sit just yet. Instead, she went about, finding and disabling the cameras in the room.

"No telling who else could be watching," she explained when Ashley gave her a questioning look.

She went back to the girl, pulled off the rifle strapped across her chest, then took off her jacket and her shoulder holsters, setting aside her guns on the empty space on the bench beside her.

"Where did you get all those guns?" Ashley asked, momentarily distracted. "Did you guys find a weapon stash in the island?"

"Luis knew a guy who sold us weapons," Helena said ambiguously, thinking it was better than to have to explain to Ashley she was referring to the same merchant the girl had seen her kill in the cabin and whom she had killed again very recently. "Long story," she added, noticing the curious look on Ashley's face.

"Okay," Ashley easily agreed, her attention back to the med kit. "Take off your vest."

Grateful Luis made no comment about the merchant, Helena removed the vest and heard Ashley gasp, no doubt at the sight of her wounded side and the blood that had seeped through and stained her shirt.

"Shirt, too," Ashley murmured as she rummaged through the med kit, taking out bandages and several topical medications. "I need to clean your wound and patch you up. Are you still bleeding? It looks like it's stopped. I only know the basic stuff, so I'll need help if you are."

"I don't know," Helena said, starting to take her shirt off.

"You don't kno-" Ashley repeated, confused, but she suddenly went quiet when Helena's shirt was removed completely.

She looked at the girl and noted the wide eyes and slack jaw.

"Is it that bad?" she asked, looking at her injured side to see for herself.

Ashley didn't speak and instead continued to stare, first at the cut on the right side of her belly that ran up vertically below her breasts, then at three deep claw marks she had gotten from the verdugo, which ran across her stomach.

Helena's watched the girl's wandering eyes, trying to remember where and how she had gotten injured. There was her shoulder, clearly the worst, having been dislocated twice and not given any reprieve since. The cut on her forearm had been from the plaga that animated the suits of armor in the castle, the burns on her back from the lava that caught her as she pushed Luis out of reach from the thrashing gigante. Her hand, also burnt, was from the cattle prod, which had her removing her gloves without being asked. Lastly, her side, the most recently injured part of her body, had stopped bleeding, but the wounds were caked with dried blood.

"Helena…" was all Ashley managed to say, worried, guilty and pained at the sight of her.

"It's okay, Ashley," she attempted to reassure the girl. "I can't feel the pain because of the plaga. It's made me stronger, too. I'll be fine."

"You can't feel it?" Ashley mumbled, even more concerned, eyes widening again.

"It's not like that with you?" Helena guessed, and the girl shook her head. "I think they gave me a different kind of plaga," she said, even though that brief talk with Saddler and Luis' concerns gave no indication of it. "Don't worry about it, alright? We just need to get to Luis' machine and get these things out of our bodies."

"What? A different plaga? What do you mea-" Ashley started to say, then stopped, shaking her head. "You know what? It doesn't matter, and just because you can't feel pain doesn't mean you should be so reckless, Helena," the girl scolded her, far from comforted by her words. "And it doesn't mean you shouldn't take care of yourself when you get hurt! You feel okay now but what happens when the plaga is gone?"

"I have been saying that again and again," Luis quipped, and though his back was still turned on them, Helena knew he had to be grinning. "But, ah, she doesn't listen to me. Perhaps you'd have better luck, Ms. Graham. Oh, and, do be gentle with her. I have a sneaking suspicion her ribs are broken, fractured at the very least."

When Ashley looked at her again, it was with a stern, determined expression that more or less meant, _'You'd better listen to me.'_

"Your side first," Ashley said, using some of the water from their last canteen to wet a piece of cloth. "I need to clean it so it won't get infected. Your cuts, too."

"She has burns on her back," Luis added, but he sounded apologetic as opposed to amused. "That was my fault. I'm sorry, Helena."

"I'll look at it after," Ashley promised, then continued to gently dab the wet cloth on her side, cleaning the punctured area as thoroughly as she could before moving on to the cuts on her body.

When Ashley was done, she set the cloth aside and picked out an antibiotic ointment from the topical medications she had laid out. With a dollop of ointment on the tip of her fingers, she gingerly touched one of the punctured wounds, stopping to look at her questioningly.

"It really doesn't hurt?" the girl asked. "You don't feel anything?" She moved on, now rubbing ointment on one of the cuts on her stomach, again asking, "You don't feel that?"

Helena shook her head, watching Ashley as she worked. She noticed, as Ashley's fingers traced the cuts across her stomach, that the girl's face had become flushed. She frowned, only now realizing she had flustered the girl.

_Ashley's so mad at me her face is red._

"Is it really that bad?" she checked with the girl, hoping her wounds weren't as grave as they seemed and Ashley had seen so herself.

"Bad," Ashley repeated absently, keeping her eyes trained studiously on the work at hand and not her. "Very bad. Yes, it's… bad."

Cursing silently, Helena leaned back against the wall to allow Ashley easier access to her stomach, deciding the most help she could do was to not hover over the girl as she worked. Ashley stopped for moment, eyes slowly drifting up her inclined front.

"I'm not leaning on my burns," Helena was quick to say, seeing how much Ashley's face had reddened in what had to be frustration.

"Oh," Ashley mumbled, looking back down immediately and continued to tend to her. "Okay. Sorry."

"Don't be," Helena told her, smiling a little. "I'm sorry you're upset with me, but all I could think about was finding you, and I'm glad we did, that we weren't too late."

"Me, too," Ashley squeaked, the pitch of her voice unusually high.

Stopping to get more ointment, Ashley began to apply it to the cut just under her breasts. The girl went about it slowly, not making a sound, all her attention on the task. Helena sighed and stared at the ceiling, trying to think of what else she could say to make Ashley feel better.

 _I'm bad at this,_ she thought sourly, imagining Luis must be quietly laughing at her hapless flailing.

Ashley suddenly blurted out something, speaking so abruptly Helena wasn't sure she heard it right.

"My what?" she asked, glancing down in time to catch Ashley's eyes widen. "Did you say my abs?"

"What? R-Rib! Your ribs, I meant!" Ashley stammered, sounding guilty for some strange reason. "Your ribs are…" she trailed off, seeming to forget her wording for a second.

"Broken?" Helena said after a pause, thrown off by the odd behavior.

"Oh!" Ashley exclaimed, seeming surprised by the very notion. "It is? I mean- yeah…"

"I thought so, too," she admitted to the girl, sighing. "Did you feel it?" she asked, gently taking Ashley's hand and guiding it to the place she'd thought they'd broke, just under her right breast. "There, right?"

Ashley made a noise in her throat, likely a reaction from feeling the injury again.

"Yeah… th-that's it," she croaked, fingers gingerly rubbing the area.

"I'll try to be more careful," Helena said, though she wasn't sure if that was a promise she could keep. "Okay?" she prompted, but Ashley didn't respond, her hand lingering a moment before finally dropping. "Ashley," she called, getting a good look of the girl's face when she turned to the med kit, "are you okay? You're kind of red."

"I- I'm okay," Ashley stuttered, though she only seemed to redden further. "I just… I just feel a little feverish, that's all, nothing serious."

The wolf snorted, a fairly appropriate reaction, and began to sniff curiously at the contents of the med kit.

"No, girl," Ashley gently chided, placing all but the ointment back in the med kit and closing it.

"It could be the plaga acting up," Helena murmured, frowning in worry while her wolf whined in protest. "Take another dose as soon as you can, alright? Two hours," she said, remembering what Luis had told her. "I'll remind you."

Ashley nodded, seeming to take a moment to get her bearings. When she was ready, she looked up, face still flushed but not nearly as much.

"May I see your arm, Helena?" she asked, right down to business.

Helena wordlessly complied, holding out her arm and letting Ashley take it. Though the cut on her arm was comparable to the ones on her stomach, Ashley was considerably less flustered when she cleaned the wound and applied the ointment. She seemed less upset and more focused on the task at hand. Helena chose to say nothing, letting the girl work, and soon Ashley was done and moving on to her burnt hand and the more minor cuts all over her body.

With her wounds cleaned and treated, Ashley went about covering and wrapping them. First was her midsection, and as Ashley wrapped bandages around her stomach, Helena noted that the girl's face was turning a little redder. She frowned, hoping whatever was ailing Ashley was really nothing more than a fever.

"Awfully quiet over there," Luis chimed in an oddly teasing way.

"Shut up, Luis," Helena snapped, seeing how uncomfortable it made Ashley.

"I was merely making an observation, Helena," he half-heartedly defended himself, punctuating it with a chuckle.

"Ignore him," she told Ashley, who had just finished wrapping her arm and was now attending to her hand. "I know I do when he's not talking about the plaga or Saddler's plans," she said, using her now wrapped hand to gently grasp Ashley's.

Ashley stared at their hands and looked up, smiling shyly.

"It sounds like it," the girl agreed, seeming much like herself now. "He said you had burns on your back? Let me see."

Helena scooted to edge of the bench to let Ashley sit behind her, then turned to show her back. Ashley took a moment to remove the crude covering Luis had made in a hurry.

"Bad?" she asked when she heard a gasp.

"Not the burns, no," Ashley murmured, a slight quiver in her voice. "I was actually looking at your shoulder. It looks a lot worse now."

"I dislocated it again," she explained, quicking adding, "but I didn't feel anything when it happened. You said the burns aren't that bad?"

"They don't look like it," Ashley told her.

"That's good," she remarked. "I was wearing the vest when it happened."

"I'm glad you were, Helena," Ashley said, giving her good shoulder a gentle, affectionate squeeze before reaching for the med kit.

As Ashley went about dabbing a damp cloth on her burns, Helena turned her attention to her wolf, petting her and talking to her. When that didn't prove enough to distract her wolf from the med kit, she resorted to the jerky, which was devoured nearly instantly.

"Sounds like you're finishing up there," Luis commented. "We'll be off soon, yes? Helena, there's a communications tower further in the facility, but it's a ways away and likely heavily guarded. Do you want to see if you can make contact with your handler?"

"No, it's too risky," Helena said with a shake of her head, Ashley brushing her hair aside as she did. "We have Ashley. Our priority now is to get to the machine and remove the plaga."

"The machine it is," Luis responded agreeably, then suddenly cleared his throat. "That reminds me, the quickest route to the machine is through the chute. That is, we have to jump in the chute."

"The chute," Helena repeated, waiting for the punch line of the joke Luis had to be telling.

"Yes," came the nervous answer, not at all what was she expecting.

"The chute where you dumped the guerrillas?" she said flatly.

"Oh, don't worry, Helena," Luis laughing assured, still not getting it. "They're probably dea- oh."

She scoffed.

"Yeah. 'Oh.'"

"Well, ah, I doubt it's that high a fall if we're not being held ten feet in the air by a crane," Luis insisted, hardly convincing. "On the off chance the ganados survived, we can throw a grenade or two down the chute before we jump. If landing is the issue, I can use the crane to drop the dumpsters to make a cushion. It's far from sanitary, but safety first, yes?"

While Helena didn't relish the idea of using the last of her grenades this way, Luis had a point.

"Yeah," she relented, "that sounds good."

"I think you're done, Helena," Ashley said when she finished covering her burns with gauze. "I wish there was something I can do for your shoulder.

"You've done more than enough, Ashley," Helena murmured, grasping the girl's hand. "Thanks," she said sincerely, then reached for her shirt.

She waited for Ashley to give her one last look over before pulling her shirt back on. Giving her wolf a pet, she stood and picked up the vest.

"Here, Ashley," she said, handing it to the girl. "Wear this."

"But that's your bullet proof vest!" Ashley protested, pushing it back to her. "I'm not the one fighting."

She nodded.

"Exactly. I'm going to do everything I can to keep you safe, but these guerrillas have guns. If a stray bullet hits you, there isn't much we can do. Please wear the vest, Ashley."

Though clearly reluctant, Ashley mumbled a barely audible, "Okay," and started to latch it on with her help.

"This, too," Helena added, holding up the jacket for Ashley to wear. "I know you're cold, I just saw you shiver. I don't want your fever getting worse."

Ashley looked at her and nodded, slipping one arm into the jacket and then the other. Once she was sure Ashley was snug and comfortable, she reached into one of her pockets, taking out a small tracking bug.

"This is a bug, there's one like it in the jacket," Helena informed her. "I'm going to put this one on your shirt. If we're separated again, I'll know where you are. Remember that, okay? I'll come find you."

Ashley looked terrified at the very notion, but quickly put on a brave face and nodded.

"I'll remember," the girl said, giving her a hug.

Helena patted Ashley's head, then her wolf's with her other hand when she whined for attention.

"Come on," she urged them both. "Let's get going."

* * *

After a thankfully uneventful trip back to the disposal area, Helena tossed the last of her grenades down the chute and Luis returned to the control room to operate the crane. Hearing the explosion, though barely, she signalled Luis to begin dropping the dumpsters in the chute.

"Are we really going to land in the garbage?" Ashley asked, making a face. "That's gross."

"If I still had my grappling hook, we wouldn't have to," she said, absently touching her shoulder. "But it's a choice between getting dirty or breaking bones, Ashley, or even worst than that."

"I know," Ashley mumbled, then sighed. "I do know that, I'm sorry, Helena. It's just gross to think about."

Helena nodded in understanding, soothingly rubbing the girl's back. The last of the dumpsters was dropped, and soon Luis had rejoined them.

"Here, girl," Helena called her wolf, who happily hurried over to her. "Luis, get Ashley," she told him as she bent over and picked up her wolf with ease, her enhanced strength making it seem as though the animal weighed like nothing.

Surprisingly cooperative, Luis nodded and slid over to Ashley, a grin on his face.

"Shall we, Ms. Graham?" Luis practically purred, holding his arms out to Ashley. "Don't let this rough, rugged exterior fool you, Ms. Graham. You'll find I'm pleasantly soft and, dare I say, quite cuddly."

Ashley rolled her eyes, unimpressed.

"I'd rather jump alone."

"Now, now," Luis coaxed with a chuckle, "it's to keep you safe. It's what Helena wants, yes?"

"I'm sorry," Helena said when Ashley looked at her forlornly. "I don't think she'd let Luis hold her," she explained, indicating the wolf, "if he can at all."

"Well, at the moment, not all of us have the strength that can overpower a verdugo," Luis joked, again holding out his arms for Ashley, who gave him a queer look. "I know I'm not your first choice, Ms. Graham, but I'm afraid you'll have to make do."

Ashley looked at her, nearly pouting, then reluctantly allowed herself to be picked up.

* * *

Landing safe, Helena stood and gently put her wolf down while Luis helped Ashley, getting up and carrying her away from the garbage. Not bothering to check if the grenades had actually been of use, they pressed on, eventually coming upon a platform that overlooked a circular room with a lava pit in the middle, a wrecking ball hanging above it. In the corner of the room, a small, mechanics operation cubby sat.

Helena stopped at the ledge and held out an arm, keeping Ashley from following.

"It's a trap," she said.

"You think so?" Ashley asked, looking at her with searching eyes.

"Yes," she affirmed, nodding at the wall to their left. "Those rocks blocking that hole in the wall wouldn't be hard to break through. They'll have us surrounded as soon as we jump down. Luis," she called, "is there another way?"

"I'm afraid not, Helena. An alternate route will take too much time."

She nodded and pulled out her Hydra, aware of how low her shotgun ammo was running. Luis couldn't have been doing much better, she thought, and while she still had her magnum and Picador - and though Luis had the TMP and his Red9s - losing the shotguns meant having only the magnum, which had little ammo to start with, as their only powerful close ranged gun.

"Ashley, stay up here with the wolf," she told the girl, then bent over to affectionately pet her wolf. "Stay with her, okay, girl?" she said, hoping her wolf understood. "Stay," she repeated, offering another jerky and handing the rest to Ashley, then asked, "Do you still have the taser?"

Ashley shook her head.

"No, they took it."

"Hm," murmured in thought, not surprised by the answer but also not wanting to leave Ashley defenseless, though her choices were limited. Fishing around her pocket for a sheath, she pulled out her combat knife, sheathed it and handed it to Ashley. "Use it only if you really have to," she advised.

"Won't you need it?" Ashley asked, always concerned for her.

"We'll be fine," Helena assured. "Just stay up here, okay?"

"Okay," Ashley reluctantly agreed, then moved back near the wolf.

"Stay," Helena ordered her wolf one last time, then jumped down to the pit.

"Let me take the lead, Helena," Luis said, moving on ahead of her as she went for the door leading out. "I'm the one with a vest," he reminded her. "Let's not make Ms. Graham worry more, yes?"

Before she could respond, the blockade of rocks crumbled, and guerrillas began to flood into the room at alarming speed, seeming to come not just from the hole in the wall but from every nook and cranny of the area.

"Dios, that was quick!" Luis exclaimed, turning around and ordering her back. "The wrecking ball, Helena!"

With gunfire coming from both sides, Luis backed into the small cubby with her as she reached for the controls. She waited a moment, watching as one of the guerrillas began to step into the pathway of the wrecking ball. She pulled the lever, slamming the guerilla into the wall, which didn't break but at least weakened.

"Maldito!" Luis swore as the glass above them shattered from gunfire. He ducked down his head and lifted his shotgun over the ledge to return fire at them. "A grenade or two would be very nice to have right now, don't you agree?"

"Yeah, well, we don't have one," Helena yelled back, annoyed with how amused he seemed.

She kept her head ducked low under the cover of the cubby's metal base. Pulling out her Picador alongside her Hydra, she kept the Hydra trained on the cubby entrance on her side, leaving the other side to Luis. They took turns risking shots over the ledge to pick off any advancing guerrillas.

"Damn that merchant for selling them guns," she cursed, ducking down to avoid gunfire again.

"If you hadn't attempted to murder him several times, he may have agreed to repossess some of his merchandise," Luis quipped, and without looking, she could tell he was smiling.

"Oh, shut up," Helena growled, seeing two guerrillas edging around her corner, guns drawn at Luis.

Helena took them out with her Hydra before they could take another step, firing one-handed and not feeling the recoil due to the effects of the plaga in her body.

They made their stand there, effectively keeping the guerrillas at bay with little communication. Luis watched her back as she did his, and it made her realize how much she had come to rely on him. If he hadn't bothered to find them at the castle, she didn't know if she would have been able to find Ashley or if she would have survived long enough to try.

Glancing over the top of the metal ridge, she saw three gunmen approaching. She fired off several quick shots with her Picador, managing to take one down before ducking back into cover.

"Just a few gunmen left," she told Luis as he blasted through one's head on his side. She took advantage of the respite she was given and pulled the lever again.

"Uh, Helena, what are you doing?" Luis asked.

"The door's probably locked and the hole in the wall may be rigged now," she said, having noted that guerrillas had stopped coming out of the hole. "I'm making our own entrance."

"Oh," Luis mumbled. "That's an excellent idea!" He peeked from cover and said, "It may just need one more hit. We'll have to hold them off until we can use it again." He sunk back next to her, remarked, "I'm worried about our ammo."

She nodded, agreeing with him

"We shouldn't be here for much longer," she said.

"Not just here. The whole island."

"That's what I mean," she answered back. "I don't intend to be here much longer than this."

"Please don't speak ominously like that," Luis implored, likely with a disapproving look on his face. "You make me nervous," he added, then shot through another guerrilla that tried to approach and checked around the bend. "One gunman left, looks like."

"Sending in the gunmen first," she muttered, "idiots."

"Shh," Luis quietened. "Let's just be grateful, yes?" Then, after a pause, he suddenly said, "I'm dashing out. Don't hit me with the wrecking ball."

"What the fu-" Helena started to protest, but Luis was already gone.

Cursing, she ducked out of cover and killed off the last gunman, and then she swore again when plaga erupted from his head.

Luis got dangerously close to a tall, bulky guerrilla equipped with a morning star and crudely suited in metal plates for armor. Luis fired twice with his shotgun, the force sending the massive, heavy guerrilla stumbling into the lava.

Helena switched to the sniper rifle and aimed at the headless guerrilla lumbering towards Luis. She pulled the trigger, killing it in one shot. Looking up from the scope, she saw Luis baiting more to the pit and actually succeeding.

 _He's lucky they're dumb,_ she thought, shaking her head.

She pulled the lever, the wrecking ball finally breaking through the wall, then hurried out to join Luis. Putting her guns away, she easily shoved guerrilla after guerrilla into the pit, dodging the swing of their melee weapons as Luis did. The last one, another of the bigger ones in armor, fell with a shot to his knee from Luis, then a kick from her sent him into the pit.

"Well," Luis chuckled in between catching his breath, "that's one way to save ammo."

"Yeah," she absently responded, reloading one gun and hurrying back to the ledge for Ashley and her wolf. "Ashley!" she called, "are you okay up there?"

"I'm… I'm okay," Ashley said after a second. "Duckling's chewing a man's head off…"

And just like that, Helena's appreciation for Luis turned into annoyance.

"You told Ashley her name is Duckling?" she snarled, wondering how he even had the chance to do it without her knowing.

"The girl's gotta call her something!" Luis defended himself, grinning sheepishly when she gave him a withering glare.

"Her name is not Duckling," she snapped, then called back up to the platform overhead. "You can come down now, Ashley."

Ashley carefully moved over to the edge and jumped down the ledge, where Helena caught her and set her down gently.

"Come on, girl," Helena urged her wolf. "Stop doing that, we have to go."

It only took a moment before she heard a grunt and a shuffle of paws, and soon her wolf was trotting to the ledge and jumping down to join them. After making sure Ashley and the wolf weren't hurt, they pressed on, using the makeshift entrance Helena had created with the wrecking ball.

* * *

Armed with her Hydra, Helena led the group down the gray, dimly lit hallway. Halfway in, her wolf began to growl and then there came a noise, one that was unmistakable. It was the loud, raspy breathing of a regenerador.

"Damn it," she cursed, holding out an arm to stop everyone. "Luis, there's a regenerador up ahead. Ashley, stay behind me."

As she said it, the regenerador lumbered into view, its breathing growing more frantic as it began to hurriedly drag its feet towards them.

"W-what is that?" Ashley stuttered, clinging to her in fright.

"It's okay, Ashley, just stay back," she told the girl as she and Luis brought out their sniper rifles and fixed on the infrared scopes.

Ashley reluctantly stepped away from her and she and Luis made quick work of the regenerador, first taking out the plaga on its front. Luis brought it down with a shot to the leg and she took care of the rest, killing the last plaga on its back as it writhed on the floor.

"Is it dead?" Ashley asked, still so frightened her voice was quivering.

Reacting immediately, Helena turned and drew Ashley close.

"It's okay now," she said, then continued to hold the girl until she calmed down. Her wolf approached them, earning a few pats on the head from them both.

"There may be more, Helena," Luis informed her, though it was more for Ashley's sake.

After checking with Ashley one more time, they went on and eventually came upon another regenerador. Though she and Luis were able to kill it from a distance as they did the other, Helena hated that Ashley had to see the likes of regeneradores at all. She had wished to spare the girl from seeing the true horrors of the plaga, but it seemed it couldn't be helped and she could only hope Ashley would see no worse than a regenerador.

Helena reached back to grasp Ashley's hand, silently promising to the girl that she won't let her become like those things. Ashley squeezed her hand, seeming to understand.

When they reached the double doors at end of the hall, Luis and Helena positioned themselves at either door while Ashley stayed back with the wolf.

"Alright, I'm opening it," she said, ready with her Hydra, and kicked the door open.

The room, a warehouse holding rows and rows of shipping boxes and a bulldozer, looked to be empty. A quick inspection later, Helena found no sight or trace of guerrillas or regeneradors.

"We'll need to pass through here," Luis said, searching for the panel to open the sliding doors leading out. He found it and opened the door to the east.

"Nothing useful in these boxes," Helena grumbled, kicking away the last box she had checked, which turned out to be empty.

"Oh!" Ashley exclaimed, running to the bulldozer and climbing on the open-box bed attached to it. "Let's take this, Helena! I can drive it!"

Luis cleared his throat, obviously not keen on the idea.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Ms. Graham, but do you even have your driver's license?" he asked, already making his way to the front of the bulldozer. "Even so, it won't be anything like driving the cars your father gives you. What say I drive instead, hm?"

Helena, busy carrying her wolf into the box bed, was just about to comment when Ashley ran past her and caught up to Luis before he could open the door to the driver's seat.

"I said I could do it!" she barked at him. "Just because I'm the president's daughter doesn't mean all I do is ride a limo!"

"So you have driven a bulldozer or have you not?" he challenged, his playful grin not helping matters.

"Why, have you?" she snapped back, giving him quite a scowl.

"Ms. Graham, I understand you want to help, but this-" Luis started to say, but was cut off when the other sliding door opened, revealing a large group of armed guerrillas that immediately charged at them.

"Damn it," Helena muttered. "We have to go! Now!"

Ashley, taking advantage of the distraction, had already started to climb into the driver's seat.

"Go help Helena, I'll drive!" she told him, waving him off.

Luis lingered for a moment, looking stunned that a teenager had gotten the best of him. With a shake of his head, he climbed into the bed. Had the circumstances been different, Helena would have been amused.

"Which is the bigger threat to our lives, I wonder," Luis drawled, gesturing at the incoming wave of guerrillas and then at Ashley.

Helena, having none of it, lightly smacked the back of his head.

"Just shoot and shut up already."

* * *

Amid wreckage, fire and rubble, Helena and Luis climbed out of the truck bed. Still carrying her wolf, Helena hurried to the driver's side of the bulldozer, where Ashley sat behind the wheel, looking disoriented.

"Ashley!" she called, putting her wolf down to help Ashley out. "Are you okay? Can you walk?"

"I'm okay," Ashley coughed, a fine layer of concrete dust covering the front of the vehicle. "And I can walk, yeah. I'm not hurt."

"Okay, quick, the engine's on the fire," Helena urged, going ahead and gathering Ashley in her arms despite the girl being fine, then walked with her wolf to safety, where Luis waited for them.

"You drive, hm, Ms. Graham?" Luis teased Ashley as Helena set the girl down.

She paid no attention to Luis' remark, instead checking her wolf for injuries and was thankful she found none. She then checked Ashley herself, which the girl barely noticed as she was very much fixated on Luis' remark.

"Hey, I wasn't the one shooting the truck in front of us and making it catch fire!" Ashley snapped back. "Helena didn't do that with the other truck!"

"No," Luis responded too agreeably, the annoying grin on his face. "You were the one steering and crashing us through a building. At least you hit the right building, but I suppose you have me to thank for that, yes?"

"We could have been killed!" Ashley screamed, becoming hysterical.

"Ah, but I had the utmost faith in you, Ms. Graham," Luis quipped, and Helena decided enough was enough.

"You," Helena growled, giving Luis a little shove, "you shut up, and you," she said to Ashley, her tone easing a little, "ignore him. We're alive, we're at the right place, and we're going in before the engine blows up and kills us."

"Okay," Ashley meekly complied, looking properly chastised.

"That only happens in movies," Luis retorted, apparently feeling very petulant.

Ignoring him, Helena began to walk towards the building, Ashley and her wolf not far behind.

"Hey!" Luis squawked, scrambling after them.

Helena saw Ashley childishly stick a tongue out as Luis as he caught up and made no comment, figuring she could allow at least that. They entered the building, having no need for doors as an entire wall had been broken down due to the crash.

"Through here," she said, leading them to another set of doors that led further in the building.

They entered the new room, which looked to be a living area of sorts with lavish furniture and expensive-looking paintings. Fine, ornate boxes sat on the coffee tables and the desks lining the walls, and they were quick to catch Luis' eye.

"Ooh-"

"If you go for treasure, I will shoot you in the foot," she barked, cutting him off.

Luis' face dropped, but his pout did nothing to sway her.

"This used to be one of the merchant's shops, Helena, imagine what we could find! And look, they're such tiny boxes, I doubt we'd have trouble making room for the-"

Again, he was interrupted, this time by an explosion from outside, the blast so strong that the wall behind them shook. Helena heard Ashley squeal, followed by the girl huddling close to her. She looked at Luis, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Ay, Dios," Luis relented, letting out a long sigh. "You were right, Helena, it would seem it does not only happen in movies."

* * *

They crossed the room, eventually coming upon another set of doors, but these, unlike the rest they had passed through so far, had a grand design, matching that of the impressive room they were in. The other side, however, was nothing extravagant, the floors and walls gray. The area was wide, sparse of anything but a few worn, forgotten pieces of furniture covered in dust, and the glass windows on the high ceiling allowed some light to enter the dark room.

Hearing footsteps, she turned sharply towards the grand platform up ahead, where a man dressed in distinct purple robes stepped before them, a peculiar, grotesque-looking staff in his hand that appeared to be wrapped in a fleshy, pulsating substance similar to some plaga.

"Helena," Ashley whispered as her wolf began to growl, cowering behind her at the sight of the man and clutching her arm. "That's him, that's the man I saw in the church!"

"Saddler," Luis murmured, saying the name like a swear. "This is bad, Helena, if he's here, alone-"

"I can feel them," the man, Saddler, droned in Spanish, his voice low and thick and his face twisting into a gleeful expression, "growing ever so strongly inside you," he went on, reaching out with his hand, his red eyes fixated on Ashley.

"Don't even fucking look at her!" Helena roared, pulling free the magnum without a second thought and unloading all six bullets at Saddler.

Each bullet struck Saddler, on his chest, on his neck, on his face, but none made him flinch. He stood there, the power of a magnum proving ineffectual, and belted out a deep, derisive laugh, taunting her, mocking her.

"I see you are not one for conversation, Agent Harper," he blathered on, casually picking out each bullet from his body and face and dropping them to the floor without a care. "Very well, I'll be taking my leave. Won't you come with me, Ashley?"

Again, he held out his hand to Ashley, as though he was reaching for her. Helena drew her Hydra, ready to lunge at him, but stopped when she felt Ashley's hand drop from her arm. The girl had gone completely still, her eyes staring blankly ahead.

Her eyes, Helena saw, that had become red.

"Come, Ashley," she barely registered Saddler saying, "let us be away from this place."

"Ashley, no!" Helena cried out, blocking the girl's path and then grabbing her around the middle when she didn't stop.

Ashley did as she asked and looked at her, red eyes still vacant of expression. Then suddenly, with surprisingly strength, Ashley broke free from her hold and before she could react, she was lifted off her feet and flipped on her back, her Hydra skidding across the floor when she hit the ground.

"No!" she roared, on her feet in an instant and at Ashley's heels.

It was the last thing she saw, Ashley walking away from and towards Saddler, and Saddler laughing. Though she couldn't feel it, she touched her chest and she knew there was something. Under her palm, something was throbbing, and at the back of her mind, she knew it wasn't her heart. If she could feel, she would have felt a coldness seize her mind and body. Then, there was only sound, a ringing sound, faint at first, then getting louder and louder.

* * *

"Helena…?" Luis futilely called out when the agent had gone deathly still as Ashley had.

It was only with Saddler's prompting did Helena finally turn around, her red eyes focused on Luis.

"Ahh, Luis," Saddler taunted, evidently amused. "Just when I thought you were no longer of use to me, you deliver the Americans to my door. Tell me, what foolish agenda brings you on the path to my throne? Do you mean to steal the sample again? Such persistence and desperation. I wonder, what did that woman offer you this American agent could not? Your freedom, was it? How you value your life, to trade an entire country for it."

"What," Luis muttered, sneering at Saddler, "suddenly you care for America?"

"A fair point," Saddler allowed, sighing dramatically and placing his hand on Helena's shoulder. "I have the sample, I have the girl and I have the American agent, and now, I have no more need of you, Luis. Agent Harper," he said, withdrawing his hand, "dispose of him, with your bare hands."

The wolf growled, drawing Saddler's attention for the first time. He stopped Helena and stared at the animal, his features contorting in disapproval.

"I see you've rid this proud beast of our gift as well, Luis," he said, sounding gravely offended. "Is this what you've done behind my back, working on ways to snuff out Las Plagas in its infant stages? Barbaric. I'll personally see to remedying the harm you've done to the Americans, but that is for later. Agent Harper," he called again, then nodded towards the wolf, "kill the beast first. Pity," he went on dramatically as Helena started for the wolf, "it would have made a fine pet for Ramon."

"No, Duckling!" Luis shouted, racing ahead to keep the wolf from going to Helena and putting himself in the agent's sights to distract her.

It worked, Helena stopped and looked at him, then promptly punched him in the face, the force of it so strong it sent him flying back and into the wolf. He and the wolf stumbled on the ground, the animal snarling furiously at him.

"Helena, stop!" he pleaded, his voice strained and muffled as he cupped his jaw with one hand.

He stood back up, keeping himself between Helena and the wolf.

"You waste your time, Luis," came Saddler's mocking remark, his laugh condescending, "but, I admit, this pointlessness is entertaining. We mustn't idle for long, however. Agent Harper, if you would please."

At Saddler's signal, Helena broke into a sprint, heading right for Luis, while he could do nothing but brace himself for another hit. Instead, he saw a flash of red and black dive from the rafters.

It was Ada, swooping down and snagging Helena on the way. She caught the agent by the stomach, briefly lifting her off the ground and depositing her a good distance away from Luis and the wolf. The drop had Helena crashing through a railing, but it did nothing to slow her in getting back up.

Saddler took one look at Ada and his hubris was lost, in its place concern, frustration and perhaps fear. He beckoned Ashley to his side, the girl quick to move, and with her, he turned to leave.

"Never mind the beast and the scoundrel for now. Deal with the woman, Agent Harper," he ordered, he and Ashley already on their way as Helena covered them, "and be quick about it."

"Ada?" Luis mumbled in shock as he took a few steps back, staring dazedly at the woman in red.

He bumped into the wolf, who did not appreciate it and nipped at him, her fangs only grazing his fingers but enough to hurt.

"Ow!" he yelped, turning his wide eyes at the wolf. "I was saving you, you mutt!"

On the platform, Helena faced Ada, eyeing the woman like a predator sizing up a threat. Ada looked back, smirking gamely, her arms crossed over her chest and her posture casual, at ease.

"Your move, Helena," the woman chimed, ever calm and amused at everything.

With a growl, Helena ripped free one of the wooden strips on the railing she had broken and rushed at Ada, swinging wildly and furiously. Ada evaded every swing with nothing more than a well-timed step or a slight lean to the left or right. When Helena had her backed into a wall, she ducked, the wooden strip sailing over her head and breaking apart from Helena's strength.

Darting out her arm, Ada fired her grapple gun at the rafters and swung away. As Helena attempted to go after her, she swung back and knocked her over, the momentum taking Helena off her feet again. Helena flew back and recovered midair, landing on her feet and skidding across the floor. A few feet away, Ada landed smoothly and put away her grapple gun, looking ready for a fight.

"Don't kill her!" Luis cried out, concerned. "The plaga in her body hasn't matured, there must be some way to break Saddler's control!"

"Just stay out of the way," she dismissed, not sparing him a look, "and keep that animal away from me."

She then stepped to the side, avoiding a tackle, and kicked a foot out into the back of Helena's knee as she passed. Helena's leg gave way and she started to fall back. Luis cringed, thinking of the blow her head would take, but Ada caught her in the tumble before she could hit the ground. With impressive speed, Ada gently lowered Helena the ground and quickly moved of out of reach before the agent could properly react.

"What are you doing!" Luis howled in aggravation when Ada just continued to evade Helena's attacks, seeming to have no intention to fight back. "If you're trying to wear her out, lady, it's not going to work. She can keep going forever so you'd better try something else!"

"Is that so?" Ada quipped, laughing as she gracefully flipped over Helena's head.

"Maybe…" Luis trailed off, unsure, adjusting his hold on the wolf, who struggled more the longer the fight went, "maybe you should knock her out, then we can figure out what to do. That may even do the trick, eh?"

"Didn't I tell you to stay out of this?" Ada said with a sigh, still effortlessly keeping up with Helena.

"Not until you tell me what you're planning, I won't!" Luis shouted back, but went ignored once again.

In his frustration, his grip had gone lax and the wolf broke free, running towards the pair on the platform.

"Duckling, no!" he sputtered helplessly, scrambling after the wolf.

Bounding up the stairs, the wolf sprang and lunged for Ada, jowls open to tear at her neck. Though taken by surprise, Ada dropped and flattened to the ground in what seemed like an instant, the wolf soaring only inches above her.

Unfortunately, Helena tackled her during the opening, sending them both rolling on the ground. When Helena winded up on top, Ada immediately bucked her hips before the agent could find any purchase, throwing her off balance and reversing their positions. As Helena struggled beneath her and attempted to grab her, Ada, the quicker of the two, took hold of Helena's wrists and pinned her down.

Behind them, Luis finally made it up the stairs, just in time to stop the wolf from lunging at Ada again.

"Sorry, she got away from me," he said, keeping himself between the wolf and the pair on the floor. "I think I can distract her with some food, do you need help holding Helena down?"

Ada said nothing back, instead adjusting her hold on Helena, and got settled and comfortable on the agent. It seemed like she intended to be in this position for some time.

"Dios," Luis mumbled in disbelief, "how are you doing that? You can't be stronger than her, not with the plaga in her body!"

Ada scoffed, not even bothering to look at him.

"Wouldn't you like to know."

* * *

When Helena came to, it was to the voice of a woman she didn't expect to encounter again.

"Look who's back."

There was some shuffling about, followed by a growl that was no doubt her wolf.

"She is?" came a voice that was unmistakably Luis. "She stopped struggling, what did you do, lady?"

When her vision registered, the first thing she saw was Ada looming over her, looking more amused than she usually did. Helena blinked once, dazedly wondering what Ada was up to this time, and then, with a start, she realized the woman was sitting on her, their hips practically joined.

"Ah!" she yelped, sitting up immediately, which only brought her closer to Ada's smiling face as the woman made no attempt to move. "Wha- why are you here?" she stuttered, but only received a wider smile for an answer. "What happened? Why the hell are you sitting on me!" she demanded, confused, flustered and angry.

"She speaks!" Luis cheered, hugging her wolf, a gesture that didn't appear to be appreciated by the animal, "she blushes! She's back!"

"She _is_ blushing," Ada purred, her smile turning into a smirk.

Helena made a small noise, her mind shutting down as she stared into Ada's playful, inviting eyes.

"Get off of me!" she finally managed to blurt out, sure that her face was utterly red by now.

Ada laughed, her voice musical, but still didn't move.

"Ada!"

Though she meant to yell at the woman, it only came out as a pathetic squeak. It seemed, to Ada, she had suffered enough after that, and so the woman left her lap, graceful and fluid as she was with everything she did. Helena remained on the floor, not quite recovered yet.

"Is she okay?" Luis asked, concerned.

"She's fine," Ada said dismissively, not a hair out of place, "just give her a little time."

"You still need to tell me what you did, lady," he nagged the woman, and it was just now Helena noticed Luis was holding on to her wolf.

"Hey, let her go-" she started to say, then stopped, her memory coming back and hitting her like a punch in the gut, and suddenly, her embarrassment was inconsequential. "Ashley," she uttered, looking at Luis and then Ada when he didn't speak. "Where's Ashley?" she demanded, already on her feet and stalking towards Luis. "You let Saddler take her!"

"He took control of you both, Helena- Dios, your eyes are red!" he told her, raising his voice enough to make even her wolf pause. "He ordered you to kill us, and if not for her," he said, nodding at Ada's direction, "Duckling and I would be dead. We did what we could, given that. Well, actually, she did most of the work, something I'd still love to be briefed on," he added, the latter of his statement obviously meant for Ada, who acted as though she heard nothing.

Helena recoiled like she was struck, the news stunning her. She consciously blinked a few times, but it felt no different nor did her vision seem so. She stayed quiet, trying to take it all in, trying to remember more.

"I know he got Ashley," she eventually said, her eyes on the very spot she had last seen the girl. "After she threw me, I thought I just… hit my head and blacked out."

"If you thought that," Luis started, smiling slightly, "I'd very much like to know how you explained away in your head why your lady friend there was sitting on you."

Helena made the mistake of glancing at Ada then, who elegantly raised an eyebrow.

"I'm done trying to figure her out," she mumbled to Luis, avoiding Ada's gaze.

Luis glanced at Ada, then nodded.

"A wise decision, I'd say. Women like that, they just play all these games. Better to steer clear, Helena."

"What?" she asked, not sure what he was talking about anymore but she shook her head. "Forget it," she said, checking her tracking device and making her way towards Luis and her wolf. "Saddler's taking Ashley north, let's go," she told him, then gave him a look. "And let her go," she told him, referring to her wolf. "Why are you restraining her, anyway?"

"Ah, that may not be a good idea," Luis advised, still holding on to her wolf. "Duckling here does not quite approve of your lady friend. It's understandable, however. She saw you two fighting and wanted to protect you. Dios, I think Duckling would have attacked me if not for the timely interruption."

"Attacked you?" Helena echoed as she knelt down to take her wolf from Luis. "Is that what happened to your jaw?"

"Oh, my jaw?" Luis chuckled, happily handing over her wolf, who more than happily jumped in her arms. "That, I'm afraid, was from you, Helena. I stood in your way when Saddler had you go after Duckling."

"Ducking," Ada said, her tone disapproving, "what a ridiculous name for a wolf."

"Her name's not Duckling!" Helena snapped, protectively cradling her wolf as she glared at Ada. "Why are you still here, anyway?" she said, scowling at the woman. "Do you need something?"

"Perhaps a thank you for saving all our lives?" Luis spoke up.

Helena's expression softened at the reminder.

"Thank you," she told Ada, completely sincere. "Look, I know you're here for the plaga sample. We don't want the same things but we're both after Saddler."

Ada stared at Luis and said nothing, but it had him squirming nervously and looking ready to run for his life. That exchange alone made it clear to Helena that not only did Ada not appreciate Luis disclosing the details of their agreement, she may very well kill him for it.

"Ada," she called, making the woman look at her, "help me get to Ashley and I'll help you get the sample."

"What?" Luis blurted out incredulously.

"Really," Ada drawled, intrigued by her offer, "you'll let me walk away with the sample? You don't know what I'm going to do with it."

Helena looked the woman in the eye, not flinching or wavering in her response.

"I don't care. I just want to get Ashley. Now will you help or not?"

Ada stared at her as she did with Luis, then slowly, she began to smile.

"Well, since you asked so nicely," she said, and glanced at the wolf in clear distaste. "Just keep that mongrel away from me, and the vagrant's your problem, not mine."

"Hey!" Helena and Luis exclaimed, protesting two different things.

* * *

"They're moving really fast," Helena said as they traveled through another of Luis' secret passages. She had one hand holding her tracking device and the other petting her wolf every now and then to keep her calm while they walked. "Any idea where they're heading, Luis?"

Luis, taking point, acknowledged her question and kept leading on.

"Saddler is likely taking her to the labs in the main facility. The old man is arrogant, he wouldn't bother changing his plans, so Ms. Graham isn't in any danger. He still intends to send her home to her father, spared from the full effects of the plaga. At most, he'd place her in a chamber to incapacitate her and monitor her plaga, see what damages the drug has caused. He will see there is no damage, since the drug only slows the plaga's maturation once it's hatched. After that, who knows?"

"He's probably waiting for us to go to him," Helena muttered darkly as she put away her tracking device. "Or he'll try to kill us on the way."

"Probably both," Ada remarked, casually lagging behind.

"Well, I can surely tell you he didn't mean to leave you behind, Helena," Luis added, "nor was he expecting your lady friend there. I'd even dare to say she scared him. I know I'd be afraid if some strange woman shows up with an alarmingly exact knowledge of my bio-organic weapons. Knowledge that even my top researchers do not posses, like say, how to relinquish the control of a dominant-strain over a subordinate-strain pre-maturation."

"Sounds like you're not much of a researcher," Ada drawled, sounding genuinely bored and unimpressed.

"Only Saddler had any kind of access to the dominant-strain plaga," Luis calmly pointed out, not at all deterred by Ada's disinterest. "Even Salazar barely got a glimpse of the sample I stole. Look, lady, I'm not asking you how or why, I just want to know what you did to… snap Helena out of it, so to say. It may save our lives when we face him again."

"He's right, Ada," Helena agreed, slowing down enough to walk with Ada, strategically putting herself between the woman and her wolf. "I'm no good against you. If you know a way to prevent it, you should tell us."

"And this is all considering we make it to Saddler before the plaga matures," Luis reminded them, "because once that happens, we'll have no chance of getting Helena back."

"Fuck," Helena swore loudly. "Ashley hadn't taken another dose yet."

"Don't worry, Helena, Saddler wouldn't dare accelerate the plaga's growth," Luis told her, "it's too big a risk, like I said, and he wouldn't take that chance with her. Our main concern right now is you, Helena. You should take another dose. Here."

Catching the bottle Luis tossed her way, Helena took three pills in her mouth and downed them, foregoing the little water they had left. She kept the bottle in her own pocket, hearing Luis attempt to talk to Ada again.

"I've suspected plaga hosts communicate via ultra high frequency sound waves," he began to say, "and that Saddler uses a similar, more remote method to impose on a premature subordinate plaga, perhaps with the aid of an amplifying instrument of some sort. Now, am I making any sense or should I not postulate anything ever again?"

"His staff," Helena said, making even Ada look at her. "I think it's alive, I saw it move. And before I blacked out, I heard this sound… this ringing. I didn't think it was anything so I didn't mention it, but if you're right, then-"

"You're not as dumb as you look," Ada interjected offhandedly, following it with a shrug.

Luis stopped and whipped around, his eyes wide at Ada's confirmation.

"Y-you mean…" he stuttered in disbelief, and then in an instant, he broke into a huge grin. "I'm right? Yes, I'm right!" he cheered, hurrying down the path in excitement and almost dropping the flashlight he was holding. "I told you, Helena! Didn't I tell you? Hah!"

Ada watched the gleeful man, her expression not changing, then she looked at the wolf and then finally at Helena.

"You have questionable tastes in companions, Helena," the woman told her, almost walking close enough to provoke her wolf again.

"Not much further now!" Luis announced up ahead, waving them over.

Keeping her wolf back, Helena scowled at Ada, and when the woman smirked knowingly at her, all she could do was mutter to herself, "You're telling me."

* * *

The passage brought them into what looked like a massive boiler room, where there stood several guerrillas on guard, spread out and few in number. They cleared the area with little trouble, barely using ammo, and soon Luis led them to the only exit, where there was a hallway leading up to the door.

The walls consisted of white panels, framed by metal in a grid-like pattern leading up to the exit. The passageway looked strangely modern in contrast to the boiler room they were leaving, bright white lights were fixed at regular intervals along the hall and the metal framework looked newly installed.

"Laser sensor grid, stay back," Luis told them, approaching a nearby panel and attempting the various access codes he had at his disposal. "Maldito," he was cursing a moment later, stuffing the ID cards back in his pack and slinging it over his shoulder. "Saddler's updated his security, I'll need to hack the system to disable it."

"How long?" Helena asked, approaching him with her wolf.

Luis' nervous laugh did nothing to assure her.

"Ah, about that…" he trailed off, giving her a hapless look. "The only other way is to access the panel at the end of the hall, Helena. It's suicide! No one can go through those lasers and-"

"Speak for yourself," Ada cut in, uncrossing her arms and sauntering into the hallway, the lasers activating at the first sign of movement.

"Ada, no!" Helena shouted, attempting to go after the woman but forced to stop and keep her wolf back. "Ada, get back here! Luis, do something!"

"I'm trying, I'm trying!" Luis howled in panic, frantically fumbling at the panel.

Ada ignored them and continued walking, even as the first couple of laser devices started sweeping vertically and horizontally. With perfect timing, she stepped through a fleeting gap between the beams and, somehow, it was like she'd managed to ignore the lasers as well, her stride unfaltering.

The next set of lasers was more complicated, transmitters along the ceiling allowed beams to sweep diagonally along with the vertical and horizontal beams from the wall devices. As if she could predict the irregular pattern, Ada picked out another opening, diving through the small gap effortlessly. She landed in a crouch, in time to duck the next onset of lasers rushing towards the movement.

A third wave of lasers approached Ada, the sheer number of transmitters this time producing a crisscrossing mesh of beams with no openings to exploit. Ada took one look at the sidewall before darting towards it, using her incredible speed to scale the height where the bare panels offered no purchase. She dodged the screen of lasers, pushing off the wall and twisting in ways Helena wouldn't have believed were humanly possible to evade the next set of beams following short after. Ada landed perfectly on two feet on the other side of the hallway and pressed something on the switchbox that disengaged the whole laser defense mechanism.

"There."

It was only when Ada spoke did Helena realize she had been staring, that she had been gawking at the woman like an awestruck fool, and try as she might, she couldn't stop herself. She hadn't seen anyone move like that, she never thought anyone could.

 _What a woman,_ she found herself thinking.

In her arms, her wolf grunted and wriggled out of her loose grip, and beside her stood Luis, having long abandoned his attempts at hacking the security system. If she hadn't been so fixated on Ada, she would have seen him shake his head.

"That was something, eh?" she heard him say, though barely.

"She's something," she whispered, not knowing she had said it out loud.

Luis chuckled and patted her back, saying, "Let's go before she catches you staring and talking about her, hm?"

This time, Luis' words sunk in, and she looked at him strangely.

"I didn't say anything," she said with a grunt, and felt even more annoyed when Luis winked at her.

"Of course not, Helena."

He went on ahead to join Ada and she followed with her wolf. When she made it to the end of the hall, Ada greeted her with a smile, the kind of smile that made her think the woman knew exactly what was going on in her mind. The thought flustered her so much she quickly avoided Ada's eyes.

"We should go," she mumbled, taking the lead and going through the doors

"Yes," Ada agreed, falling in step behind her. "Let's."

Helena cleared her throat a little as they made their way into the next area. She did her best to analyze the room they were in instead of letting her mind wander. It was rather small compared to other areas they'd passed through so far, containing only an extravagant leather chair situated on a slightly raised platform. Her wolf whined, seeming restless, and Helena reached for the animal, petting her.

"We're almost through, girl," she told the animal quietly, and she noticed Ada raising an eyebrow at her but the woman didn't comment. "What the hell is this room, anyway?" she muttered, wondering out loud.

"The old man calls it his throne room," Luis said, shrugging animatedly, "just one of the many side effects of being a cult leader and having an army of bio-organic weapons at your disposal. The power has gotten to his head a little bit."

The strong possibility of Luis' theories actually turning out to be valid explanations had Helena shaking her head in reply. Keeping her wolf close, she led the group past the throne reaching the opposite wall where an exit had opened up to reveal a compact elevator.

"We'll have to go one person at a time," Luis said, a bit unnecessarily as Helena eyed the cramped space. She didn't bother questioning the strange room, and more so Saddler's tastes, further.

"I'll go first," she volunteered, leading her wolf into the elevator and holding her securely.

It took another two minutes for Luis and Ada to come down one by one, but when they did arrive, they set off quickly enough through the underground pathway.

"Is this another passage?" Helena asked, switching her tactical light on and taking point, ready with her Picador in case they ran into more guerrillas.

"Of mine? No," Luis said. "There are suspended crate rigs up ahead, we can go through them to get to the other side. Saddler used to store and transfer cargo in this chasm."

"Used to?" Helena echoed, not liking the sound of it.

"The old man had the team work on an experimental BOW. He wanted us to fuse human, insect and reptile DNA since we had some success with novistadores," Luis explained, his tone conversational as always when he spoke of his work with the rest of Saddler's research team. "The team called it U-3, but the old man? He called it It. He didn't feel very good about himself when he couldn't make U-3 sit or shit where he told it to. It was too feral, even more than Del Lago and the regeneradores, so the old man built a cage for it here and sealed off the chasm. I don't think he wanted his loyal followers to see that there exists a subordinate plaga strain their great Lord Saddler couldn't control."

"Do you think he let it out?" Helena asked, opting for her Hydra as she prepared for the worst.

Luis didn't answer immediately, seeming to think about it.

"Not unless he was really desperate, his ego cannot handle it otherwise."

The passage opened up to an area resembling a cavern, dimly lit with rocky walls that extended higher than the light could reach. To their right there was a sheer drop into unknown depths with nothing separating the edge of the path from a deadly fall. A little further up, the massive cargo rigs Luis had mentioned hung by a series of sturdy chains, the structure's metal grate platforms bridging the gap to the other side of the cavernous area.

Helena started for them at once, faithful wolf at her side. She'd almost reached the cargo rigs when something loud and fearsome roared from behind the cave wall to her left.

"What the-"

With another deafening roar, the rock wall broke apart, debris flying outwards as some kind of massive creature forced its way through. The beast had a man's torso leading down to a deformed abdomen, bloated and elongated like that of an insect's. Its left arm was grossly deformed, the limb extending twice the length of the other and ending in a bulbous mass of flesh. Four other limbs protruded from the lower body, bent out like insect legs but with the musculature of human arms, each ending in five clawed appendages.

Worst of all was the creature's face. It had no lower jaw, the face was split gaping open to the sides making room for a hideously long reptilian tongue. As distorted and grotesque the beast had become, it was clear the thing was once human, its head resembling a tortured man's face with white and hollow eyes without irises. He looked beyond pain and suffering, the thing was just mutilated now. Helena was almost glad Ashley wasn't with them, if only to save her from this horrifying sight.

When it roared, saliva flew everywhere, the creature unable to close its maw with that ghastly tongue. It lunged at Helena, who was standing the closest, skittering forward on its four supporting limbs amazingly fast.

She barely had time to raise her Hydra, unloading three shots into the beast's chest to halt its charge. While the thing was staggered, she deftly loaded another three shells into her shotgun. Luis swore from behind her, the bullets from his Red9 doing nothing. Then her wolf was growling at once and, without a restricting hold, she took off after the creature.

"Girl!" Helena called after her, eyes widening in fright. Her pet looked tiny compared to the massive BOW.

Sure enough, as soon as her wolf jumped at it, the beast reared up again, swinging out its elongated limb to swat the wolf away like she was a fly. Her wolf went flying until she smacked against a hard wall and crumpled in a whimpering heap.

Helena's heart stopped in fright, instantly wanting to go over to her pet, but she forced herself to keep her eyes on the beast, glaring at the disgusting thing. She was running at it before she knew it.

"Helena, don't!" Luis yelled, panicked and fearing for her life.

As she approached, the BOW swung out its heavy limb at her, the enhanced appendage coming at her with frightening speed. Helena was faster, taking quick aim, her shot hit at close range, the force of the shell blowing the limb apart in a mess of blood and pus. The BOW seethed at her, its reptilian tongue writhing as it wailed. It lunged at her again, furious.

Her next shot made contact with its leg, the impact throwing the thing off balance to the ground. It scrambled up, supported by its three other limbs, and leapt at her, propelling itself like a grasshopper. Helena didn't have time to evade.

She grunted as it collided into her heavily, sending both of them backwards towards the other side of the pathway. From her peripheral, she saw Ada already standing at the crate rig platforms, gun at the ready.

"Send it over the edge, Helena!" she called.

With her incredible strength, Helena shoved at the creature, managing to push the thrashing thing away. She quickly pulled herself to her feet before the BOW could lunge again, snarling as she struck it with a kick so hard it sent the beast flying off the edge of the rocky path.

It lashed out desperately and somehow managed to grab onto the edge of the metal grate platforms, clambering for support. Ada was there in a second, still gripping her grapple gun in one hand and aiming her sidearm with the other. A single shot sounded before the beast was falling to its death, a writhing confusion of limbs.

The moment she saw the BOW fall, Helena turned on her heel and rushed to her wolf, Luis not far behind her. She let Luis check on the wolf, not trusting herself to keep her strength in check, not when she could barely do it with her emotions. Part of her wished the BOW hadn't been rid of easily, because then she could have ripped it apart with her bare hands.

 _Calm down,_ she told herself, and began to take slow, deep breaths, her body trembling from the effort.

When she felt she had regained enough of her composure, she carefully and slowly reached into her pocket and drew out the last of the jerky, feeding it to her wolf as Luis continued to examine the animal.

"How is she?" she asked, her voice a little strained.

"Doesn't seem like anything's broken," Luis said, gently handling the wolf, who began to stir and attempt to get up. "Easy, Duckling," he soothingly told the animal as he helped. "There we go. You're alright, aren't you?"

Helena brought out the mock bowl from Luis' pack and filled it with water. She placed it in front of her wolf and the animal drank eagerly, emptying the bowl within seconds. Once done, her wolf approached her, clearly seeking affection, and though she wanted, more than anything, to embrace the animal she had grown so fond of in so little time, she only allowed herself to gingerly pet her, still afraid to hurt her.

"Don't do that again, okay, girl? Okay?" she said lovingly, not caring how silly she must sound.

Her wolf fidgeted happily, responding to the tone of her voice. With one last pat, Helena stood and headed back to Ada, who calmly stood by the edge, seeming to be keeping an eye out.

"See anything?" she asked the woman, already reaching for her Hydra.

"No," Ada said. "It's either dead or it has a long way to climb."

"I don't think the old man's ego accounted for either scenario," Luis quipped, looking pleased with himself. "Let's not stay and find out, eh?"

Nodding in agreement, Helena checked her tracking device and blinked at what she saw.

"Luis," she called, showing him the screen. "They stopped moving. Do you know where that is?"

Luis took one look at the screen, then his face lit up in recognition.

"This is perfect" he exclaimed, turning to her with an excited grin. "That lab is in the same section my machine is in, Helena!"

She looked away from Luis and stared at the screen for a while, making certain Ashley had indeed stopped moving. If Luis was right, they just had to find Ashley and the machine would be right around the corner. They were so close, they just had to find Ashley.

Putting the tracking device away and drawing her Hydra, Helena led the way to the other side of the chasm.

* * *

"We should have fought our way through that last group," Helena was grumbling after what felt like hours of skirting around enemies and sneaking around buildings to avoid fights. "We're wasting time crawling through all these fucking tunnels."

"Do you have the ammo to spare for that?" Ada said, talking to her as though she were a child, and she couldn't answer, instead needing to keep her temper in check. "I didn't think so."

The remark snapping what little control she had left, Helena whipped around and stalked towards Ada, baring her teeth at the woman who simply looked back at her, daring her make another move.

"She's right, Helena," Luis pointed out, and he likely would be attempting to separate them if he didn't have to keep her wolf back. "We should avoid fights whenever possible. Expect the worst from Saddler, the old man's not going to just let us walk away with Ms. Graham. And unlike U-3, I doubt you can just push him off the island and be done with it."

Though she was listening to Luis, Helena didn't take her eyes off Ada. She was still angry and she didn't like the way Ada was looking at her; she didn't like the way Ada had spoken to her. It seemed so easy and so natural to fly off into a rage, to attack whatever or whoever stood in her way.

"Helena," she heard Luis call her, but still she didn't turn away from Ada, "it's not much further, alright? Just try to calm down, I know that seems very hard to do right now, but you have to try. The plaga is making you more prone to anger and violence."

Ada's expression changed then, from indifference to something else, a look Helena couldn't quite read.

"You can handle that, can't you?" the woman asked her, rather, challenged her.

It took longer than she would have liked, but eventually, Helena nodded.

"Yeah," she said, meeting Ada's eyes and saying it like a promise, and she may have imagined it, but she thought she caught a look of approval from Ada before she turned away from the woman.

As they passed through another underground area, faint sounds of gunfire and commotion could be heard from the passage opening at the far end. Quickly crossing the distance to the exit, they found the tunnel led out into a trench of sorts on the outskirts of an encampment. The trench was fairly deep, but Helena could just see over the walls while staying safely hidden.

"They're here," she mumbled, stunned.

Above her, a helicopter hung low in the sky with a searchlight illuminating a battleground, where US soldiers exchanged fire with guerrillas. The soldiers were taking heavy fire, ducking behind fences and buildings, using what cover they could find in the encampment.

It was one thing to hear about the horrors of a new type BOW en route to a mission to find the president's daughter, another to deal with it firsthand. The soldiers seemed overwhelmed by the sheer number of guerrillas, but more so with the plaga emerging out of corpses every so often. Each time, a handful of soldiers were slaughtered before they could bring down the beasts with gunfire.

"Helena…?" Luis asked, knowing what she was thinking.

She wanted to go out there and help them, to tell them Ashley was alive and they weren't fighting for nothing. She wanted them to know that, like Smith and Jackson, they weren't dying for nothing. But she couldn't, not without risking Ashley's life. Luis' secret passage allowed them the best, quickest chance to get to Ashley, but only if it remained a secret.

Like her, all the men and women fighting out there were sent to do one thing, and she had no doubt any one of them would do what she was about to do.

"Let's keep moving," she said, turning away from the scene and keeping her eyes ahead, towards Ashley.

"Are you sure?"

"Our advantage is that Saddler doesn't know we're coming," she told him, continuing down the passage with her wolf. "We'll compromise that if we give our position away and I'm not risking it. Back up being here means nothing if we don't find Ashley and get her to your machine."

Luis could only reluctantly agree and they kept going, the sound of fighting hanging over their heads.

* * *

When they made it inside the building, Luis ran up ahead.

"My machine is right down this hall," he said, starting down the path to their right. "Helena, let's have your plaga removed and-"

"No," Helena cut off. "We find Ashley, then we go to your machine," she said, checking her tracking device and seeing that Ashley was just to the left of her current position.

"What? Saddler will control you again, you know that!" Luis protested, blocking her way to Ashley.

"And I'll be useless if you get rid of the plaga now," she calmly pointed out. "My shoulder's been dislocated twice and my ribs are probably broken. I wouldn't be much help if I feel those. I'm quicker and stronger right now, I could use it against Saddler."

"But he'd be using you against us!" Luis howled, exasperated.

"Destroy his staff," she said, and when Luis just stared at her, she sighed and took a moment, feeling her temper start to rise. "His staff," she repeated. "You said it's what Saddler used to control me, so just get rid of the staff if he tries again."

"I also said I thought they communicate via sound," Luis sputtered, throwing his hands in the air in frustration, "does that mean we should make you wear earplugs? That was a theory, Helena! We have no proof destroying Saddler's staff will free you from his control! What if it doesn't work? What then, Helena? What then?"

She looked at him, then spoke without hesitation.

"Then kill me if you have to and get Ashley," she said, her eyes now on Ada, because while she was answering Luis' question, her words were meant for Ada. "If that happens," she added, turning back to Luis. "Ada gets the sample. That was the deal."

Luis could only stare at her, too stunned to speak. Helena walked past him, then stopped when she noticed her wolf following her and she realized something.

"Luis, the room where your machine is in, is it safe?" she asked.

"What?" Luis mumbled, confused but hopeful. "Did you change your mind already?"

"No," she said, and he didn't look surprised. "I want to keep her there if it's safe," she told him, petting her wolf. "I don't want to put her in danger if I can help it, and she'd be one less thing to worry about if Saddler does get to me."

"If only you cared about yourself half as much," Luis muttered, shaking his head. "Alright," he relented with a long, tired sigh. "Let's take Duckling to the room."

Helena nodded and followed him, thinking she'd let him get away with the name this one time.

* * *

Now minus the wolf, Helena, Ada and Luis entered the lab. Sparse of equipment and lacking personnel, there in the middle was a sealed chamber surrounded by machinery and apparatus of all sorts. Countless thick pipes and wires connected the huge capsule device to monitors and large power outlets. Strapped into the airtight chamber, and encased by a hazy mist, was Ashley. Her eyes were closed, the girl was clearly unconscious.

"What the fuck is this!" Helena swore in disbelief and rushed to the chamber. "You said she was just being monitored!" she yelled at Luis. "Why the hell did he put her in this thing? What's he doing to her?"

"She is just being monitored, Helena," Luis said, running after her. "It takes more than conventional methods to sedate and monitor plaga. The gas is keeping her under. I can get her out, it shouldn't take lo-"

"Typical American," came a voice that was unmistakably Saddler's, and there he was, standing on a balcony above the doors they had entered. "I give you one task, one simple, easy task, and even that, you cannot do."

"Get Ashley!" Helena barked at Luis, running ahead towards Saddler and shooting with her Picador.

Saddler laughed when no bullets struck him, thinking she had been aiming at him and not even noticing she managed to hit his staff once.

"It seems Ramon overpraised your marksmanship, Agent Harper," he taunted, grinning maliciously. "No matter, you'd still make a fine personal guard."

At his last words, Helena went still, her Picador falling to the ground as her arms dropped limply to her sides. She turned around, facing Ada and Luis, and then broke into a sprint, heading right for Luis.

"Dios, not again!" he squawked, quickly abandoning his attempts to free Ashley and running off. The girl was safer in the chamber than out with Helena going after him.

"Agent Harper," Saddler called, making her pause in her pursuit of Luis. "I've changed my mind. Prove to me you're an able marksman, I would hate for Ramon to have been wrong."

To Luis' horror, Helena brought out the magnum and aimed at him. He ran as fast as he could, but there was no cover nearby. Just as Helena pulled the trigger, an arrow buried itself into her hand, knocking her gun away and sending a misfire into the wall. The magnum fell to the floor with a clatter and Ada sheathed her crossbow in exchange for her grapple gun, rushing over to Helena.

Helena looked down at her palm, the arrow had struck clean through to the other side, but her blank eyes registered no pain. She grabbed the arrow, snapping it like a twig and tugging out the embedded end without a care.

With her bloodied hand, she reached for the magnum again, but Ada appeared, kicking the gun away and out of reach. Then, brushing past dangerously close, she deftly pulled Helena's sniper from her chest strap, flinging it across the room while twirling away.

Swinging round, Helena freed her Hydra, aiming straight at Ada's face. But the woman ducked backwards, kicking the shotgun barrel upwards and out of Helena's grasp and using her hands to flip herself upright again in a single movement. She looked relaxed as ever evading Helena's attacks.

From the balcony, Saddler watched, his amusement and arrogance gone. The ugly sneer on his face worsened the longer the woman toyed with the American agent at his command. Then, as he looked about the lab, his ire only grew when he realized he had lost track of Luis. He made his way down and approached the chamber, finding the controls untouched.

Behind him, Luis crept out of hiding, his Striker shotgun aimed at Saddler's staff. He fired, but Saddler suddenly turned around, grabbing him by the neck and lifting him off the ground. The grip on his throat tightened immediately and he dropped his weapon, his hands instinctively going to his neck, trying in vain to pry Saddler's fingers off.

"You've caused so much trouble for me, Luis," he droned menacingly. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Seeing what was happening, Ada swung to the balcony with her grapple gun and then, before Helena could even begin looking for a way up, she dropped back down on the agent. Her legs caught on Helena's shoulders, the momentum bringing them to the ground.

"I… I…"Luis croaked, feet kicking desperately in the air as Saddler lifted him higher.

"What was that?" Saddler taunted, actually easing his grip to let the man speak.

"I…" Luis wheezed, then let out a strained chuckle. "I have the sample, old man."

With Saddler distracted and Helena pinned under her, Ada drew her crossbow and fired an explosive arrow, hitting Saddler's staff before he could move. The arrow went off, the blast making Saddler drop Luis and shattering the staff to pieces.

* * *

The first thing that registered to Helena was an outraged howl that barely sounded human. There was a ringing in her ears, and she wondered if there had been an explosion.

"Good, you're back."

Recognizing Ada's voice, Helena tried to move but found she couldn't, a weight on her shoulders preventing it. A weight, she noted, that was also warm and soft. She blinked, realizing her eyes had been open all along, and that she had been staring at Ada's black pants.

Then, she thought, stiffening, what were Ada's pants doing so close to her face?

_Oh, God, she's sitting on my face._

"No more delays, Helena," Ada said with a smirk, and then, sparing her further embarrassment, the woman stood up. "Here."

As Helena followed suit, she caught whatever it was Ada tossed her way and was surprised that it was her Picador. Curiously, she noticed she was missing all her other guns, even her Hydra, and if that wasn't an indication that she nearly shot Ada or Luis, then the gaping hole in her palm proved it.

Disregarding her newest wound for now, Helena quickly looked around instead, more concerned with finding her other weapons. With relief, she saw her Hydra lying discarded on the ground off to her side. She started for it.

Saddler turned sharply at her movement, the look on his face livid.

"Agent Harper!"

Helena continued towards her Hydra, ignoring his call completely. Now that the staff had been destroyed, he held no power over her. It seemed to infuriate him further.

Hearing a frustrated snarl, Helena looked up in time to see the broken handle of Saddler's staff hurtling towards her, the man storming over. She ducked it swiftly, coming to a skidding halt on the floor to snatch up her Hydra.

As her hands closed around the gun, Saddler appeared in front of her, furious and lashing out with his right hand. From inside his robe sleeve, a fleshy appendage surged outwards, the sudden growth of plaga rupturing through bone with a sickening crunch and causing the limb to erupt into an elongated mass of disfigured muscle, coming straight at her.

Before Saddler made contact, Ada was there, pulling Helena out of the way, grapple gun in hand. The elongated limb went crashing through a set of pipes behind the pair, narrowly missing them.

"Get your guns," Ada urged briefly. She set Helena on the ground and fired her grapple gun again, swinging away without awaiting a reply.

Looking down, Helena spotted her magnum conveniently lying only a few feet away on the ground. She holstered her other guns and seized it, wagering that Ada had more to do with her good fortune than any luck.

In a rage, Saddler swung around haphazardly, wrecking the machinery nearby and sending debris hurtling against the back walls. Raising her magnum, Helena fired at him, shooting from across the room, her first three shots hitting him in the side of the head, neck and shoulder.

The bullets didn't seem to do much damage but the force of the shots launched his head to the side, his neck bending unnaturally. He turned to her in that mangled position, and his eyes were a curious mix of rage tempered with an edge of excitement. He truly looked like a madman.

"You foolish, arrogant American," Saddler spat out. "With your guns and brute force, do you really think Las Plagas is something that can be stopped by mere bullets?"

Helena didn't indulge him with a reply. Holding her position, she unloaded another two shots into his contorted neck, hearing a distinct crack.

Saddler screamed at her then in fury, and, using his mutated limb, he snatched up a stray piece of piping, flinging it at her.

Helena dived out of the way, and before Saddler could advance, a line of explosive arrows struck the ground in a neat row before him. The combined blast sent him off his feet.

On the ground, Saddler's body started to convulse, trembling with anger. With a final crack, his neck snapped away, dislodged upwards from his main body to accommodate the plaga surging outwards from his collar. Four massive appendages sprouted from his neckline, folding out like arachnid limbs and riddled with spikes instead of hairs. A row of monitors was crushed under one monstrous limb, and other machinery and carts of equipment were smashed aside to make room. Saddler's body dangled limp, tiny compared to the giant appendages, and his other arm and legs had been replaced by elongated masses of plaga, extending out of his purple robes and writhing.

By the chamber, from his position sprawled on the ground where Saddler had left him, Luis opened his eyes blearily. Registering the loud crashes and sounds of Saddler's rage around him, he gasped for air and reached up to his bruised neck, panicked, only to find no hands grasping it violently. Only slightly relieved, he blinked quickly and wheezed for air, willing the black spots to fade from his vision and the fuzziness to leave his oxygen-deprived brain.

His eyes widened in shock as his vision cleared, seeing Saddler in his entire monstrosity. Soon he realized he was still at the foot of the green, gas-filled tank with an unconscious Ashley inside, and by the state of the half-destroyed room of twisted metal and sparking wires, Saddler wasn't being careful anymore.

Ashley needed to be freed. Now.

Luis scrambled to the keypad of the machine to the left of its glass door. It was what Helena wanted. She'd made that much clear: free Ashley above everything. Heart racing much too quickly, he fumbled with a few buttons on it before finding the release on the door.

Gases drained from the container into vents in Ashley's holding cell as the metal locks slid back, unlocking. The glass door came next, sliding sideways into a slit in the metal, and finally, the locks over her wrists and ankles. Luis came around to the front of the door just in time to catch Ashley as the girl fell, no longer supported by her restraints in the container.

Only, Luis wasn't alone in his rescue efforts anymore.

"You ingrate!"

Luis froze and whipped his head around to see a terrifying sight. Saddler's hanging head, which had flipped back for the arachnid legs to explode from his neck, hung half upsidedown connected only by a fleshy plaga extension from the stump of his neck. Saddlers red eyes on him glared from his head's languid position.

"You. Have interfered… _enough!_ "

Saddler's mouth opened wide again, but in place of a tongue and throat, a giant, yellow eye sat in its place. The limp plaga cord that held his head sprang to life, then extended. Saddler's giant eye erupted into his head as three sharp, pronged horns split out from the extension to frame the gruesome head that had shrunken to make room for the eye. Growing out from a long, slimy limb like the legs, it dove straight for him.

It wasn't graceful, but Luis had to protect her. He had only a split second to heave Ashley to the left and toss her. She'd just left his fingers when something hard that felt like the side of a horn rammed into him hard, sending him careening straight into the tank he'd just rescued Ashley from. His head crashed into metal hard enough to crack bone, and as suddenly as he'd thrown her to safety, he blacked out.

* * *

"Ashley!" Helena hollered the instant Luis let her go.

Saddler's wicked head cracked Luis into the tank so hard Helena heard it crack bone. Luis crumpled in a heap at the door to the container right where Ashley would've been crushed if he hadn't thrown her.

Ashley groaned and rolled to her side, just coming to consciousness as the drugs slowly wore off, probably accelerated by the plaga within her. Saddler's head loomed over her from where it'd just crushed and maybe killed Luis. Ashley's eyes opened blearily as it passed on over her. She screamed.

Helena's heart stopped as he paused over her at the sound. In his infuriated state, even Saddler might not know friend or foe or how to stop from hurting her. Helena aimed the Magnum with both hands and fired non-stop.

"Ashley, get out of there!" Helena howled, drawing Saddler's attention fully on herself, but unable to keep from watching Ashley. "Grab Luis and get out!" she hollered, leading him the other way to follow her.

Suddenly, one of Saddler's long, arachnid limbs swept out at her and slashed at her. She jumped back, but her focus was too much on Ashley and she didn't react fast enough. The long limb cut into the side of her leg with tremendous force. Helena couldn't feel the pain it, but she went down, hard.

She had enough sense to level her magnum and keep firing, but that was soon taken from her, too, as a crushing appendage smashed her wrist back and another heavy arachnid leg cracked over her hand, pinning it so hard to the ground, bones broke. Saddler's grotesque, plaga form loomed over her with that giant eye. Mangled, growling sounds emitted from him, as it seemed he'd lost his ability to speak, but his intentions were clear enough as he reared back that giant appendage to spear and crush her.

An instant before he came barrelling down on her, an arrow struck him at the very left most crevasse of the eye, just under the tip of his horn. The arrow started smoking - maybe one of Ada's acid arrows. It missed the eyeball, hitting only his protective sheath, but affected him enough to make him stagger a little to the side.

Helena sat up in that instant, ignoring the unnatural twist of her pinned and broken hand, and grabbed the smoking arrow from its lodge in the fleshy plaga. Her other, also injured hand burned instantly, but she didn't let go, not until she reared it back and stabbed into the eye. Yellow discharge exploded everywhere, and Saddler howled. The plaga wasn't immune to everything, it seemed, as even the long limb that had crushed her hand loosened up. Helena yanked her arm free and scooted back rapidly as Saddler groaned.

"That is not your personal spear, you know."

Helena stopped scooting and tilted her head back to see Ada standing behind her with a disapproving expression.

"My arrow," Ada pointed out, giving the moaning Saddler with _her_ arrow a distasteful look, then bestowing the same to Helena. "It's not your spear."

Something clattered to the floor beside her. Helena's eyes went to it and found a combat knife Ada had dropped.

"Use that, you savage."

Helena looked back up at her where Ada had already started to grapple elsewhere.

"Where are you going?" she demanded.

Even as she said it, Saddler's tentacles finally wrapped around the shaft of the arrow and ripped it out. Helena scrambled for the dropped knife and grabbed it with her bloody, burnt hand. The closest long-legged limb stared her straight down - actually, stared at her - with an eye. Helena went for it first.

Saddler saw her coming and lifted a second leg to stab at her, but in such close quarters, Helena had an advantage or two in quickness. She almost flew past his first leg, knife extended to cut into the eye of it as she passed. It wasn't deep, but with one front leg lifted already, the cut unbalanced him so much that he collapsed forward on those legs. Helena managed to slip right past his hanging body in the center as he crashed and went for the eye on a back leg.

Saddler was caught in the tumble once, but Helena couldn't say he didn't learn from it. As she stabbed into a second, back eye stuck in his leg, tentacles erupted from his arm sleeves and extended back. Too many of them struck at once in close quarters, leaving Helena knifeless and defenseless in seconds. Saddler grabbed her by the broken wrist, and Helena cringed, not because she could feel it, but because she was sure she heard some bone fragments shattering in her hand.

With both hands captured and useless, Saddler dragged her clean up off the ground as he regained his front footing and pulled Helena up before his twisted, bloody and busted eye in that gaping grin. Saddler couldn't say anything but to growl at her, but Helena got the message clear enough as he started to hawk up spit in a fashion that Helena knew would be acid to her body. His long throat extension gagged before his head tilted back. Without a mouth - not one that didn't have a giant eyeball sticking out of it anyway - the deadly venom came at her from between his nostrils. Helena grimaced and made to cover her face as the acid flew at her.

Thankfully, she was not alone in this.

Whizzing through the air in what seemed to be her favorite mode of transportation, Ada's arm latched around her middle with barely a second before the acid hit her. Ada flew with such speed and momentum, the tentacles clinging to Helena's arms that'd been holding her suspended ripped. Little tentacles pieces fell over and behind them as they glided.

"Disgusting," Ada muttered, grip wound around her middle tightly as they reached a wall and Ada kicked off from it. "He has no maneuverability," Ada told her as they flew, something Helena had picked out as a weakness earlier on, too. They flew right over his tusked head and Ada kicked it as she passed. "Do what you do. I'll cover you."

Ada dropped her right over the long neck of his head extension, making Helena yelp at the unexpected fall, but react quick to wrap her arms and legs around the neck extension at the halfway point. It was not a friendly landing, suddenly pressed up against that slimy, sticky muscle where Helena had no knife and could barely get a grip to hold steady.

As soon as Helena had latched onto him, he started shaking, neck bobbing up and down trying to dislodge her as the tentacles sprouting from the top of his leg limbs all reached for her at once.

"Ada!" Helena yelped, barely able to keep her grip on him only by sinking her fingers into the disgusting muscle of the long neck.

"Be patient," Ada snapped, rounding him in another half-circle with her grapple, this time holding one-handedly onto a crossbow, which she fired into his neck only slightly above Helena's head, enough to startle Helena into almost falling right off him.

"Be careful!"

Another lodged itself a little above the last. "Sticky arrows. They won't fall out." Ada offered in a swinging pass near her, conveniently drawing up the tentacles attention after her. "Climb them."

Saddler made a noise that screeched and grated on her ears, then started to shake his neck wildly again, leaving Helena to cling, which wasn't working so well with her weapons. Helena wouldn't be able to climb anything with them. So, the next moment Saddler stopped shaking when Ada shot him again on the other side of the neck, slightly higher than the second rung, Helena dropped them and scrambled at her chance. She got up two rungs, then had to cling again with Saddler's next round of neck tremors.

Ada smiled at her during her next passing. "You should see the view from here."

"Just shoot him again!" Helena snapped, pain immunity not including dizziness, which she was getting a lot of while climbing here.

Ada did so, and Helena clambered another two rungs of arrows before she reached her first side-husk and grabbed it. The arrow she grabbed snapped in half at the shaft, sending her dangerously careening one-handedly clinging to a thick tusk.

"Careful!" Ada warned her, almost snapping. "I said they're sticky, not unbreakable arrows."

"You _have_ unbreakable arrows?" Helena growled, reaching up to grip with her whole arm around the thick tusk from a side angle, both arms meeting and latching at the middle of it to keep from falling.

Saddler's eyes, is human ones, glared at her, dark and red. This time, one of his giant legs tried an impossible angle as Helena hoisted herself atop his head and balanced between the middle of two tusks, grip and balance unshakeable on each. Saddler lowered his middle head and tried to swipe at her with a long, spidery leg that just missed the top of Helena's head in her quick-reaction ducking.

" _Ada!_ "

"Relax already."

A hissing arrow whizzed through the air at the leg limb trying to do acrobats to behead her. It lodged half-deep into the leg and hissed, sizzling. Her acid arrows again. Helena had little time to contemplate it in her moment of chance as his head lifted slightly, rearing back in pain from it.

Risking all of it because there was no room to grip from the top of his head and reach it, Helena carefully but quickly jumped down to the bottom, third husk under Saddler's chin and locked her legs around it to keep from falling either way. Saddler's eyes grew big when he saw her, followed seconds later as he tilted his head further back, attempting to spew venom again.

Grabbing either cheek, Helena pulled back the sickly, muscle-like flesh enough to wedge an arm in elbow-deep on the other side, which slid easily against the squishy, inner eye in his middle. The acid bulge moved up that neck, at the middle now, as she pushed in her other arm to that mouth, too, and reached for fleshy attachments at the back of the throat.

All of Saddler's eyes went wide, and that acid bulge had only a couple more inches to travel. Helena latched onto whatever she felt back there, nails digging into it, and yanked it with all her strength.

The eye popped from his mouth with an audible squish, and Helena with it, thrown back by her own force of the pull. She tumbled backwards, narrowly missing the spike of his third tusk by pure luck that his head started to twitch, and fell to the ground in a backwards somersault, hugging something squishy as she tumbled twice upon hitting the ground.

With a loud, anguished cry, Saddler's mutant body started to collapse around him, his human eyes on her as it did. Helena realize she was still holding the giant eye and, sneering in disgust, tossed it aside.

Saddler's head fell next, collapsing forward and spilling from his mouth the acid, eating up the floor when it touched it. Helena backpaddled rapidly as Saddler's human body was the last to fall, crushed under the weight of his plaga. Helena watched it fully collapse in on itself in open-eyed astonishment.

Saddler was dead, he was finally dead. But there was no time for relief or respite.

Helena hurried over to Ashley and Luis, the girl calling out to her when she drew near.

"Helena! He… he won't wake up!" Ashley cried out, her voice trembling. "He's breathing. I-I... think I positioned him right, so he won't choke, but he won't wake up. Shouldn't he by now? I don't know what to do. What do we do, Helena?"

She checked on Luis first, kneeling in front of his prone body and making sure he was indeed breathing and positioned properly.

"He's fine, Ashley," she said, reaching out to grasp her shoulders, the most comfort she could offer given that Ashley was kneeling behind Luis. "You did good, you made sure he's breathing without trouble. There's nothing else we can do for him now and we can't wait for help to get here."

"Help…?" Ashley mumbled, then her eyes widened in realization. "They're here? The other agents my father sent? The army?"

"They're fighting with Saddler's men right now," Helena affirmed, giving Ashley's shoulders a comforting squeeze. "We can't wait, Ashley," she repeated, "we need to get you to Luis' machine and remove the plaga before it's too late."

"Who's going to operate the machine if Luis doesn't wake up?" Ashley asked, looking at her with big, frightened eyes.

"I will," she answered calmly. "I've looked at the data Luis sent me."

Ashley frowned, her fear becoming worry.

"But what about you, Helena?" the girl whispered, like she was afraid she already knew the answer.

"Let's go," Helena said, as they had no time for bad lies and pointless arguments. "My wolf's in the room with the machine," she added, hoping the news would bring a little cheer.

"Duckling's okay?" Ashley gasped, her eyes teary. "Oh, thank God. I was so worried, I thought- when I didn't see her..."

"She's okay," Helena told the girl.

 _Like you will be,_ she didn't say. _I'll make sure of it._

Slowly, she let go of Ashley's shoulders and began to search Luis. Though she couldn't sense it, she knew Ada was standing behind her, waiting, watching. When she found the plaga sample, she looked over her shoulder and met Ada's eyes.

"Here," she said, handing it over without hesitation.

As Ada took the sample and kept it, Helena had a feeling the woman would have put a gun to her head if she had changed her mind about their agreement.

Whatever the consequence, she thought, she would own up to it.

"Helena, your hand!" Ashley exclaimed in horror, having finally noticed the hole in her palm.

"We'll deal with it later," she said dismissively, hoping Ashley wouldn't notice that her other hand was broken. "Come on, it's just across," she urged the girl as she carefully picked up Luis.

When she straightened and turned around, she was surprised to see that Ada was still there. Even more unsettling was that Ada was looking at Ashley.

"What?" she demanded, protectively stepping in front of the girl.

Ada calmly looked at her, then simply said, "You may know what to do, but if you don't do it right, she's going to die."

"What," she grunted, though it was nothing but false bravado and Ada no doubt knew, "and you know better?"

"What do you think?" Ada responded cryptically, not even waiting for an answer before heading for the doors.

Urging Ashley to follow, Helena caught up with the woman, being mindful of Luis.

"You have a funny way of helping," she muttered, realizing what was happening and knowing it was pointless to ask why.

Ada glanced at her, looking amused.

"You have a funny way of asking."

* * *

The doors had barely slid open when the wolf rushed to greet them, squeezing out the moment she could to run to Ashley.

"Duckling!" the girl happily exclaimed, meeting the wolf halfway to hug her.

"Let's go in," Helena said, carrying Luis inside the room and gently placing him on the floor.

She put him in a recovery position and checked his breathing. She then rummaged through his pack for the med kit and did what she could to treat her punctured hand, all the while attempting to track Ada as the woman walked towards a console and accessed its controls.

In just a moment, the room became aglow with lights as the machine powered up, drawing attention to a heavily reinforced, reclined chair. Surrounding the chair were screens and monitoring equipment, and hanging over it were two robotic arms fixed with lasers. Though she had seen its schematics, Helena had to wonder how Luis managed to keep the machine a secret from Saddler.

"It's ready," Ada said, turning to her expectantly.

"Ashley first," she decided, approaching the girl and then escorting her to the chair. "It's going to hurt," she told the girl, hating that it was also the most comfort she could offer.

 _You could die,_ was the truth she wouldn't dare say, _everyone else who sat on that chair did._

"The chair has restraints built in," she said instead, wanting Ashley to know what to expect. "They're going to trigger when you sit on the chair. We're keeping the restraints on you, okay? It's better to keep you from moving too much when the plaga is being removed."

Though clearly terrified, Ashley nodded bravely and sat on the chair. When she did, the restraints snapped into place and the screens nearby flickered on, displaying her vitals in extensive detail.

"You okay?" Helena murmured worriedly, having noticed that Ashley flinched.

Ashley nodded again, fighting to stay calm.

"I'm… I'm okay, just surprised. It didn't hurt me or anything," the girl said in a small voice, looking like a trapped, helpless animal.

Fighting a very real urge to break Ashley free, Helena glanced at Ada, exchanging a look with the woman, and then turned back to Ashley.

"Ready?" she asked, wishing she could hold the girl's hand.

Ashley looked at her, still scared but very determined.

"Ready."

Taking the cue, Ada initiated the operation. The robotic arms moved, lowering until the lasers hovered over Ashley's chest. The dull drone from the machine became louder, spooking the wolf, and the lasers activated, releasing bright beams of light on the girl. Ashley seized, her eyes wide and her mouth agape, and as the lasers began to move, she jerked and thrashed against the restraints, whimpering miserably.

When the timer passed thirty seconds, Helena went over to the console with Ada, unable to just stand and watch Ashley suffer.

"What's taking so long?" she asked, looking at the real-time images Ada was staring at intently.

She was stunned when she saw the plaga. The parasite, roughly the size and shape of a scorpion, squirmed as though in pain and attempted to slither away. The way it moved so invasively in Ashley's body had her gritting her teeth in rage.

"Ten more seconds," the woman calmly replied, eyes never leaving the screen.

As Ada worked, Helena saw now what she had meant earlier. Controlling the lasers required a delicate, steady touch, two things that currently cannot be said for either of her hands. Ada directed the lasers expertly, keeping the light on the plaga without trouble. Helena also noticed that, when the plaga attempted to approach a vital organ, Ada would quickly give chase and stop it.

True enough, after ten seconds, the plaga stopped and, under the glare of both lasers, its body broke down completely. Ashley slumped against the chair, eyes closed and chest heaving. Helena was at her side in an instant, and she nearly fell to her knees in relief when Ashley's eyes opened. Her eyes, Helena was happy to see, were no longer red.

"Did it… did it work?" Ashley breathed, dazed and exhausted.

Glancing to Ada for confirmation, Helena looked back at Ashley and nodded.

"Yeah, it did. You're okay now," she said as the restraints retracted, and she proceeded to help Ashley off the chair, bringing the girl over to her wolf. "Stay here with her, okay?" she told the girl, bringing out her phone and handing it to Ashley. "If something happens to me, try to contact Hunnigan. The lines are probably still jacked but they shouldn't be for long, just keep trying to reach Hunnigan."

"Helena-" Ashley started, but she would have none of it.

"This is just in case, Ashley," she cut off, "so you'll know what to do."

Ashley looked at her, blinking teary eyes at her.

"Okay," the girl mumbled, clutching her phone.

Giving her wolf a gentle pat, Helena turned and made her way back to Ada. The woman was looking at her like she was already dead, and in a few minutes, it may be true.

"I don't know why you helped me then," she told the woman, referring to when Ada had saved her from the village chief, a moment that felt like it happened a lifetime ago, "and I don't know why you're helping now, but thanks."

Not waiting for a response and not expecting one, she sat on the chair and leaned back. The restraints came up, followed by the lasers. Helena felt nothing at first, but past the mark of forty seconds, her chest tightened, as though something had wrapped around her heart and squeezed. Then she felt it all, her hands, her shoulder, her chest, the pain excruciating and unbearable.

* * *

Another forty seconds passed when Helena went deathly still, her vitals dropping dangerously, but Ada wasn't done. The woman remained quiet and composed as she continued the operation on the now unconscious agent, a reaction that was the complete opposite of Ashley's, who had gone into a fit of panic.

"W-what's going on? What's wrong with Helena? It's been twice as long!" the girl cried, unable to move any closer since she had to hold on to the wolf. "Stop, please, she can't take much more. She's dying!"

"She will if I do," came the ever calm response, and all Ashley could do was watch and pray.

Twenty seconds later, it was finally over. Ashley anxiously looked on as Ada approached Helena.

"Is she…?" Ashley trailed off, not wanting to think about it, much less say it.

"She's alive," Ada said, and gently, she eased one of Helena's eyes open to check, revealing a hazel iris, not red. Seemingly satisfied, she drew back and turned to Ashley. "You shouldn't move her until help arrives," she advised, and without another word, she began to leave.

"Wait, please don't leave!" Ashley begged, clinging to the wolf, who was becoming restless. "I can't call anyone, the line is still dead. You know where they are, can you take me to them or… or tell them we're here? I don't think Helena will- she needs help now, please!"

Ada paused, not even looking back, and continued to walk away.

Before Ashley could shout again, Helena's phone buzzed in her hand, startling her. Clumsily, she held the phone and answered the call, nearly crying in relief when Hunnigan's face appearing on the screen.

"Helena-" Hunnigan started to stay, then gasped. "Ashley! Are you alright? Where's Helena? Was she able to clear the lines?"

"I-I don't know," Ashley stuttered, dazedly wondering if Ada had something to do with it.

"Ashley," Hunnigan called again, frowning deeply in worry. "Is Helena there? Is she alright?"

Hearing Helena's name again, Ashley let out a whimper.

"I don't know," she whimpered in despair, barely making it to Helena to show her to Hunnigan. "We got the plaga out of our bodies. I'm okay, but Helena…" she trailed off into a sob, unable to hold back from crying anymore. "Her heartbeat's so weak, oh, God, she's barely breathing. What do I do, Hunnigan? I don't know what to do. I don't know."

"Ashley, it's okay. I want you to listen to me, alright?" Hunnigan said, speaking slowly and soothingly. "Helena put a tracking bug on you, didn't she? We've tracked it and we have your location. A team is on its way now, they're moving as fast as they can."

Ashley sank to the floor, clutching desperately at Helena's pant leg.

"Okay," she managed to say between sobs, curling up against Helena, the wolf whining at her side. "Okay."

"Just wait a little longer, Ashley," Hunnigan promised. "You'll be home soon."

**End**


End file.
